Gain Control, Reduce Risk and Enforce Compliance in Zoom Team Chat

Zoom Team Chat is a messaging and collaboration platform designed for groups, integrated into the Zoom video conferencing app. It provides users with the functionality to communicate and share information in real-time, both through one-on-one conversations and team chat rooms. Zoom Team Chat aims to increase productivity and facilitate collaboration by allowing users to easily share files, images and other multimedia content within the same tool they use for video meetings. Additionally, it offers features such as real-time search, chat history and message notifications, making it an effective communication tool for large groups of users.

By default, Zoom Chats are saved and can be viewed in the Chat History within the Zoom app. The Chat History is stored on the Zoom servers and can be accessed by the users in the Chat as long as they have a Zoom account. Zoom can retain Chat History for up to 1 year, although each administrator can set their own retention policies for their organization.

In Zoom Team Chat, direct messages (also known as private messages) are visible only to the individuals involved in the conversation. By design, direct messages are not visible to other members or to anyone outside the conversation. This feature provides users with a secure and private way to communicate with one another, allowing them to have confidential conversations without the need for external messaging tools.

Zoom offers a transcription service for recorded meetings. The transcription service automatically converts the audio from a Zoom meeting into text, which can be useful for generating meeting minutes or for making the content of the meeting more accessible. The generated transcript is synchronized with the audio and video, allowing users to navigate the transcript and view specific parts of the meeting by clicking on the corresponding text. Note that the accuracy of the transcription service may vary depending on the quality of the audio, the accents and speaking styles of the participants, and the complexity of the conversation. Transcription services may not be available in all regions, and availability and pricing may vary based on the user's location and the specific features included in their Zoom account.

Zoom is available for government use and Zoom for Government has been widely adopted by various government agencies and organizations around the world. It is a secure and compliant tool designed specifically for government agencies and organizations and provides government customers with the same experience as the commercial Zoom app, but with additional data security and compliance features.

Zoom for Government is hosted in a dedicated government cloud that is separate from the commercial cloud and is designed to meet the cybersecurity and compliance requirements of federal and state government agencies, including Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) and the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2.

Zoom's security controls are designed to meet the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) Security Rule and its infrastructure is regularly audited to ensure that it remains secure. However, healthcare organizations and covered entities must still implement appropriate policies and procedures to ensure that they comply with HIPAA regulations and adequately protect PHI while using Zoom. Aware can support HIPAA compliance in Zoom Team Chat using automated real-time compliance adherence workflows that detect PII and PHI in Zoom.

Aware is available for Zoom Team Chat messages only.

Research conducted by Aware into millions of real collaboration messages indicates that employees frequently exchange Protected Health Information (PHI) and Personal Identifiable Information (PII) through workplace collaboration tools like Zoom Team Chat. This can result in noncompliance with federal regulations and poses significant risk for companies. Aware provides a centralized platform that enables organizations to automate notifications and remediation processes when PHI or PII is detected in collaboration data. By implementing these measures, companies can mitigate the risks of penalties and ensure compliance with regulations regarding the handling of PHI and PII.

To ensure compliance when using Zoom Team Chat, organizations should establish clear and effective information governance policies for all employees. These policies should focus on compliance and provide clear guidelines on where information and file sharing is and isn’t appropriate in modern collaboration tools. Aware supports compliance enforcement by continuously ingesting and analyzing new messages, flagging violations in real time. With features like automated coaching alerts for Zoom Team Chat, Aware can help organizations enhance their compliance enforcement efforts and improve their risk posture.

Aware enables faster, more efficient eDiscovery for Zoom Chat data by ingesting messages in real time into a single, centralized source of truth that includes revisions and deletions. From there, electronically stored information (ESI) can be searched by multiple parameters and refined by Machine Learning (ML)-infused metadata to identify more relevant, contextualized results, helping business leaders get the full story faster.

By default, Zoom retains user data for the lifetime of the account up to a maximum retention period of 10 years for recordings and transcriptions, 12 months for Team Chat messages and files and 30 days for inbox messages. Administrators can reduce these retention policies with soft and permanent deletion options for all data types.

In addition to Zoom Team Chat, Aware contextual intelligence platform provides security, risk management, and business intelligence for leading collaboration tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, Webex by Cisco, and Workplace from Meta. With the ability to collect data from various collaboration tools into a centralized repository, business leaders gain a comprehensive view of the entire collaboration ecosystem, enabling efficient and effective management. By utilizing Aware, organizations have the power to secure their digital workplace and gain valuable business insights from a single system of record. To learn more about how Aware can benefit your organization, reach out to us today.

Aware utilizes its proprietary machine learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to enrich aggregate messages on Zoom Team Chat with sentiment analysis and conversation health metadata tailored to each individual company. This gives businesses deeper insight into how sentiment shifts across the organization in real time. The world’s leading organizations trust Aware to notify them of changes in their organizational culture and help them connect better with their people.

Zoom has introduced many security features to protect the privacy of private messages sent between users in Zoom Team Chat. This helps safeguard Zoom messages from unauthorized access. However, Zoom administrators and account owners may still be able to see the contents of private messages sent between users, depending on the account setting configuration. Within some highly regulated industries, the ability to access and retain all private messages may be required for law. Within other industries, private message retention may be necessary to comply with internal policies and procedures. Additionally, if a participant reports another participant for inappropriate behavior in a private chat, Zoom may review the chat to investigate the report.