This web-seminar will be held in the form of an online videoconference using a service of ZOOM Video Communications, Inc., which is a company based in the United States of America. On the basis of a standard contract approved by the EU Commission, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung and ZOOM have agreed that ZOOM will exclusively act as contractual data processor. This means that the personal data of conference participants that are required for the provision of the service and collected by ZOOM must only be processed for the purpose of providing the contractual service and must not be made accessible to third parties.
We recommend that you always use the most recent version of ZOOM and install updates soon after they are released, so that you can benefit from the most up-to-date security features that ZOOM has implemented and made available for secure communication. We also recommend that you keep your device (system, browser, antivirus software) up-to-date according to the manufacturer’s security recommendations.
For further details, we refer you to the "ZOOM Global Data Processing Addendum", which you can access at https://zoom.us/docs/doc/Zoom_GLOBAL_DPA.pdf
In Exhibit A of this document, you can find, among other things, a list of personal data collected by ZOOM. Exhibit B describes the data security and control requirements provided, and Exhibit C contains the wording of the data processing contract.
That is why we use Zoom in the FES!
Zoom was selected as the standard software for the FES after extensive testing of various web-seminar softwares because it is the best software on the market based on performance, intuitive handling and interactive functions for web-seminar participants.
Even if the server is located in the USA, web-seminars and online workshops remain data-efficient , since we do not enter and save any of the participants´ data in the software, but only send a link for participation.
According to the data protection officer of the FES (as of May 2020), the use of ZOOM is not objectionable from a formal legal point of view. The use of ZOOM for web-seminars and similar events on digital political education topics is justifiable from a data protection perspective and Zoom can be used for this purpose in a manner that is permissible under data protection law.
After Zoom gained a huge increase in users through Corona, the software was examined more closely and data protection flaws were found, which Zoom quickly remedied. In terms of data protection, Zoom has improved a lot in recent weeks and closed gaps. Since the end of April (with version 5.0 of Zoom) Zoom uses the secure encryption "AES 256bit GCM" and set up a security button in the web-seminar room to protect against troublemakers and "Zoom-bombing“. The FES colleagues are briefed on how they can protect the event room from interferers.
We look forward to welcoming you to our web-seminars and online workshops.