admin Zoom has opened a new data centre in Singapore, its first in Southeast Asia, it reported on Tuesday.
Usage of Zoom’s video conferencing services has surged as vast numbers of people worldwide work from home because of coronavirus restrictions, but the company has also come under fire over privacy and security issues.
The Singapore data centre, through which the company’s consumers in Southeast Asia can connect, brings its total to 18 sites worldwide.
Also, the company plans to hire more Singapore employees, including engineers and sales staff, informed Abe Smith, Head of International at Zoom.
Security researchers in 2020 revealed that Zoom rerouted some calls through its servers in China, even if those calls were placed outside China.
The company had reported that this took place in “extremely limited circumstances” and it had taken its mainland China data centres off an approved list of back-ups for users outside China.
There has been a 65-fold increase in users of its free services in Singapore, with a tripling of paying customers, since January. Since March, 400 schools in the city state have been using the platform, said Zoom’s Smith.
Singapore briefly postponed the use of Zoom by teachers in April after “very serious incidents” in the first week of coronavirus lockdown, including an occurrence that involved obscene images appearing on screens during a geography lesson.
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