Zoom conference: check that your microphone is muted after hanging up

If you didn’t put Zoom
updated recently, be vigilant. Due to a bug, the microphone of many users remained on on the video conferencing software
even though they had left their meeting.

Since December 2021, Mac owners have been complaining about the issue on the Zoom Community page.

A problem spotted on macOS

“ I’m on macOS Monterey. Several times over the past few weeks I’ve noticed the orange dot indicating that the microphone is in use by an app. I click on Control Center and see that Zoom is accessing the microphone. I’m not in a meeting and just have the Zoom app open. Why would Zoom access the microphone when I’m not in a meeting? “asked a user, who was followed by many other similar testimonies.

Indeed, a new privacy feature rolling out with macOS Monterey shows an orange dot in the menu bar when an app is using the microphone. Users were thus able to realize that it was Zoom. The video conferencing service acknowledged that there was a bug, and announced that a fix had been posted online:

” We encountered a bug in the Zoom client for macOS that could cause the orange indicator light to continue to show after leaving a meeting, call, or webinar. This bug has been fixed in version 5.9.3 of the Zoom client for macOS and we recommend that you update to version 5.9.3 to apply the fix “.

Zoom does not have an exemplary past

If Zoom did not explain what this error was due to, it raises questions about the privacy of users of the application. The service is not at its first attempt: last year, it spent 86 million dollars to avoid a lawsuit relating to the dissemination of the personal data of its users. Zoom has also been criticized for claiming its service is end-to-end encrypted when it is not.

As a reminder, Zoom was propelled to the fore in 2020 following the Covid-19 pandemic, and has been posting record results since. In the second quarter of 2021, its turnover even exceeded one billion dollars.

Sources: lifehacker
, 9to5Mac