Posted by Chandraveer Mathur on Feb 11, 2022 in macOS Monterey
Zoom is arguably one of the most popular video conferencing tools these days. However, several macOS Monterey users complain that the program continues to listen in on your activities after you exit meetings.
Late last year, Zoom users on macOS Monterey users took to the application’s forums and Reddit to complain that the orange indicator for microphone does not turn off even after they exit meetings. Users claim that the only way to stop Zoom from listening is to quit the application after every meeting. Although Zoom issued updates to fix the issue, affected users suggest the problem persists on macOS Monterey.
On December 27, the changelog for a Zoom update bearing version number 5.9.1 (3506) mentioned solving an issue regarding the “microphone light indicator being triggered when not in a meeting on macOS Monterey.” However, subsequent posts on Zoom’s community forums suggested the issue remained unresolved. Another update was released on January 24 (version number 5.9.3 (4239)). It did not mention the microphone issue on macOS Monterey in the changelog but some users claimed it solved the issue and Zoom stopped accessing the microphone after meetings concluded.
Despite that, forum posts as recent as February 8 claim Zoom leaves the microphone active after meetings on devices running macOS Monterey. Some users argue that Zoom could be using the microphone data locally to create a background noise cancellation model for your environment.
This isn’t the first time users have found potential security concerns with Zoom. It drew flak early on for lack of encryption and its data collection and security policies. The platform has rectified those issues, added end-to-end encryption, and adopted more transparent policies. However, healthy skepticism among users remains. Until Zoom fixes the issue for good, we suggest you close the program after every meeting.
Did you face this issue? Please share your solutions and workarounds with our readers in the comments.
