August 2023: There was some kerfuffle recently about Zoom's security, and whether they were eavesdropping on meetings and using that to train AIs. Zoom responded that this was "opt-in" by the users (which, of course, I never did) and applied to content (video recordings etc.) rather than actual meetings. Basic Zoom calls are all encrypted with fairly industry-standard systems, but they still have vulnerabilities, in theory, because they go between us via Zoom servers.
There is an extra level of encryption called end-to-end, which is what things like WhatsApp use (if you remember all the noise when that came out, meaning ne'er-do-wells could do things in complete secrecy). Zoom has this as well as an option, and I've enabled it for all meetings. It means you can't join meetings from the Zoom webpage (you need the PC client or phone/tablet app), and I can't use live captioning any more. But it means all our meetings happen without going through Zoom servers at all (hence end-to-end), and that's about as secure as it can be.
It doesn't change how you connect to Zoom, so for all intents and purposes you won't notice anything.
There are actually many advantages and few disadvantages to video sessions, if they're done properly. Some of the things which might be putting you off probably aren't how you imagine they'll be.
Advantages
I am very sorry, but I'm not offering this to any clients under any circumstances. If you want to see me in particular, I'm afraid it will be online.
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