Zoom down: Thousands of users unable to make calls as video app crashes
Thousands of people in the UK and US were left unable to access work calls this afternoon after video conferencing app Zoom suffered a partial outage.
Outage tracking website Down Detector showed there were nearly 15,000 reports of outages on the platform. These were concentrated on the east coast of the US, but also impacted UK users.
“We have identified the issue causing users to be unable to start and join Zoom Meetings and Webinars and are working on a fix for this issue,” the company said in a statement.
“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.”
Zoom said it was still working to fix the problem, but did not provide information about the cause of the outage.
The outage will come as a particular blow to students in the US, with thousands returning to college today.
The video conferencing service has surged in popularity since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, as millions of people use the app for work, school and socialising.
Its user numbers have soared from roughly 10m daily users in December to more than 300m at the height of the pandemic in April.
But the teleconferencing app has also come under scrutiny for its security and privacy practices as it battles to cope with the sharp increase in demand.
Founder Eric Yuan has since unveiled a string of new privacy measures and vowed to improve his company’s security tools.