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Video Conferencing

Zoom

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Zoom Communications, Inc. · zoom.us

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Accessibility Advocate

Weighted verdict

Judges the product by whether a deaf colleague and a screen-reader user can run the meeting, not merely attend it. Wants live captions, keyboard operation, a published conformance report, and dial-in for people with no usable connection. Treats an accessibility page with no report as a marketing page.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Accessibility Advocate

The meeting itself

How this is scored

Whether the call works: participant capacity, video and audio quality under load, screen sharing, breakout rooms, moderation, and what happens on a bad connection.

0 — Small meetings only, no screen sharing worth the name, no moderation controls, and the call degrades without telling anyone.

3 — Standard meetings with screen sharing and mute-all, but low participant limits, no breakout rooms and no bandwidth adaptation stated.

5 — Meetings at the scale most teams need with screen sharing, breakout rooms, host moderation, and documented behaviour on constrained connections.

8 — Large meetings and webinars with published capacity limits, per-participant moderation and waiting rooms, layout control, simulcast or adaptive bitrate stated, and reliable behaviour on mobile networks.

10 — Scale and control are engineering claims the vendor stands behind: capacity published per plan and per region, selective forwarding with adaptive quality documented, live streaming, hardware-room support, and diagnostics an admin can read after a bad call.

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The Accessibility Advocate

Breakout rooms are documented in real depth — five distinct roles, preassignment, timers, broadcast, help requests — and capacities are published per tier, from 100 and 300 participants up to an add-on reaching 5,000, with webinars at 500. Waiting rooms, passcodes and authenticated-only joining are enforced, with a waiting room switched on automatically when nothing else is set. We found no public information on adaptive bitrate, on what the call does on a constrained connection beyond a stated requirement of quality network connections for 1080p, or on diagnostics an admin could read after a bad call. 2 6 7 9 10

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Encryption & meeting access

How this is scored

What is actually encrypted and against whom, plus who can get into a meeting. Judged on documented mechanism rather than on the word "encrypted".

0 — Transport encryption only, undocumented; meetings joinable by anyone with a link and no lobby.

3 — TLS in transit and encryption at rest, with the vendor holding all keys; access control is a passcode.

5 — The above plus a lobby or waiting room, host-controlled admission, per-meeting passcodes, and a clear statement that the vendor can technically access media.

8 — Optional end-to-end encryption for meetings with the trade-offs named (which features stop working), documented key handling, SSO-gated joining, and per-meeting access policies.

10 — End-to-end encryption available without surrendering the product — its cryptography documented or open source, key management explained, identity verification for participants, and the vendor stating plainly what it can and cannot see.

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The Accessibility Advocate

Transport security is documented as TLS 1.2 with 256-bit AES-GCM, and meeting entry is gated by a passcode, the waiting room, or authenticated-only joining, with the waiting room enabled automatically when no security option is provided. The privacy statement is candid that account owners can read message content unless Advanced Chat Encryption is on, which is at least a plain statement about vendor-side visibility. We found no public information on end-to-end encryption for meetings beyond browser support tables that mark it with a cross in every browser listed, and no documentation of key handling. 3 7 9 10

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Reach & accessibility

How this is scored

Whether everyone who needs to join can: browser without an install, dial-in, low bandwidth, guests without accounts, captions and keyboard operation.

0 — A desktop client is the only way in; guests must create an account.

3 — Browser joining exists but is degraded, guests can join by link, and there is no dial-in and no accessibility statement.

5 — Full-feature browser joining without an install, guest access by link, mobile apps, and a stated accessibility posture.

8 — Telephone dial-in with numbers listed, live captions, keyboard-navigable and screen-reader-tested interface, and documented low-bandwidth behaviour.

10 — Reach is designed for: browser parity with the client, dial-in across the regions the customer operates in, live captions and translation, a published accessibility conformance report, and a usable experience on a poor mobile connection.

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The Accessibility Advocate

Live transcription and live translation are marked supported in every browser in the support tables, so a deaf colleague can genuinely follow the meeting, and browser joining is claimed at full feature parity with the web client, including Chromebooks. Remote control is marked with a cross in all browsers and component view is desktop-only, which narrows who can fully run a session from the browser. We found no public information on telephone dial-in, keyboard operation, screen-reader testing, or any published accessibility conformance report — and an accessibility posture without a report is marketing, not accessibility. 9 10

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Recordings, retention & admin control

How this is scored

A recording is personal data about everyone in the room. Who may record, who is told, where it is stored, how long it lives, and what the works council can switch off.

0 — Anyone can record, storage location unstated, no retention rule, no admin policy.

3 — Host-only recording with a notification, but storage region unstated, retention manual, and no organisation-wide policy control.

5 — Admin policy over who may record, participant notification and consent prompt, stated storage region, and manual deletion that works.

8 — Automatic retention and deletion per policy, recordings encrypted at rest with access logged, transcription handled with its own retention rule, and attendance or analytics features that can be switched off for co-determination.

10 — Built for a works agreement: every recording, transcript and analytics feature independently switchable and documented, retention executed and evidenced, an audit trail of who accessed which recording, and no participant-level behavioural scoring at all.

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The Accessibility Advocate

Participants are notified when recording is enabled, hosts can start, pause and stop, retention can be set to delete cloud recordings after a stated number of days, and Bring Your Own Storage puts the files in the customer's own S3 bucket with Zoom holding only metadata — a real answer to where a recording lives. Transcripts and AI summaries arrive as their own files with their own endpoints. We found no public information on the storage region for Zoom-held cloud recordings, on encryption of recordings at rest, on access logging, or on organisation-wide switches for attendance and analytics features. 4 11 12

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Integrations & deployment

How this is scored

Calendar, identity and the wider stack — plus, in this category, whether the product can be run on the customer's own infrastructure at all.

0 — No calendar integration, no SSO, no API; cloud-only with no alternative.

3 — One calendar integration and basic SSO, no API worth building on, cloud-only.

5 — Calendar integration for the major suites, SAML or OIDC SSO, a documented API for scheduling, and room-system support.

8 — The above plus SCIM provisioning, embedding via SDK, webhooks for meeting events, and either a self-hosted option or a documented private-cloud deployment.

10 — Deployment is the customer's choice: a genuine on-premises or private-cloud option with the same features, open protocols or open source, embeddable SDKs, and identity integration that does not require the vendor's directory.

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The Accessibility Advocate

The API surface is serious: documented meeting create and update endpoints, calendar APIs with access-control roles, OpenAPI and Postman downloads, recording and transcript webhooks, OAuth sample tooling, and embeddable web SDKs, with SSO and managed domains arriving at the Business tier. We found no public information on SCIM provisioning, on room-system support, or on any self-hosted or private-cloud deployment, so the vendor's cloud is the only evidenced mode of running it. 2 7 13 14

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where media and metadata are processed, who the contracting entity is, which subprocessors carry the traffic. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it — which in this category is heavily.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, media routed through unstated regions, subprocessors unnamed.

3 — EU data residency for storage while media relays or metadata remain non-EU, or the contracting entity sits outside the EU.

5 — EU hosting and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — relays, analytics, support tooling, transcription — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — Media and metadata processed in the EU on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, complete subprocessor list published, any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: media never leaves the EU, every subprocessor European, certification published, and an on-premises option that removes the question entirely.

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The Accessibility Advocate

The contracting entity is Zoom Communications, Inc. of San Jose, and the captured pages give no information on where media or metadata are processed; the only subprocessor statement is a generic reference to third-party service providers. Cross-border transfers are covered by the Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses, which legitimise exports rather than establish EU processing. Weighted heavily as this buyer weighs it, a non-EU entity with unstated media routing and unnamed subprocessors sits at the bottom of the scale. 3 4

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the annual invoice for their host count — including the capacity, dial-in and recording storage they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-host headline exists, but participant caps, dial-in minutes or recording storage are unpriced or unmentioned.

5 — Per-host prices public with billing period stated and capacity limits given, but at least one commonly needed piece (webinar capacity, dial-in, storage) sits in an unpriced add-on.

8 — Every tier and add-on priced publicly with per-host maths, capacity limits, dial-in rates, storage allowances, minimum term and VAT treatment stated.

10 — Complete price computability: a calculator producing the annual invoice for a given host count, meeting size and recording volume, including overage and per-region dial-in.

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The Accessibility Advocate

Headline prices are public with billing period and VAT treatment stated — "€13.33 /user per month" and "€17.49 /user per month", both "billed annually" and excluding VAT — alongside capacity limits and 10 GB cloud storage per user. But the large-meeting add-on is quoted only "From €46.50 for 500 participants per month", cloud recording and AI summary each incur a separate charge under a credit-plan subscription whose pricing sits on a separate page, and we found no public information on dial-in rates or storage overage. The annual invoice for a real host count is not computable from these pages alone. 2 4 12

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

Sources (14)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage zoom.us Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing zoom.us Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy explore.zoom.us Checked 15 Sep 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Terms of service www.zoom.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
  5. 5 The meeting itself — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 The meeting itself — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Encryption & meeting access — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Encryption & meeting access — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Reach & accessibility — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Reach & accessibility — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Recordings, retention & admin control — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Recordings, retention & admin control — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Integrations & deployment — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  14. 14 Integrations & deployment — found from sitemap developers.zoom.us Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →