U.S. video software company Zoom experienced another service outage Monday, receiving a flood of complaints from users on the first day of the online school year.
According to court documents recently filed by U.S. federal prosecutors, a Zoom executive worked with Chinese Communist authorities to provide user data from outside China and ensure access to the Chinese market.
The documents detail internal communications between Zoom employees. Zoom complied with most of these requests, some of which involved users outside of China.
This information underscores the growing number of users outside of China who will be involved as the CCP pressures companies like Zoom to monitor and censor users both inside and outside of China.
Zoom is a San Jose, California-based company whose software was developed in China.
The lawsuit, filed Dec. 18 by the U.S. Department of Justice, was filed against Jin Xinjiang (also known as Julien), a Zoom executive in China. Jin Xinjiang is accused of playing a disruptive role in a series of meetings this year commemorating the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Tiananmen Square incident of June 4 has been a taboo subject for the Chinese Communist authorities.
Jin Xinjiang was Zoom’s primary liaison with Chinese law enforcement and intelligence officials. Prosecutors allege that Jin Xinjiang was instructed by the CCP to shut down at least four Zoom meetings on the Tiananmen massacre, most of which were hosted by Chinese-American dissidents in the United States.
Zoom said at the time that it acted because it was “illegal” to attend such events in China.
On the 31st anniversary of the June 4 incident in Tiananmen Square, a “candlelight mourning for June 4” event was held on the evening of June 4 in front of Taipei’s CKS Memorial Hall’s Freedom Square, where people put up banners to express their demands. (Chen Bozhou/The Epoch Times)
After the case became public on Dec. 18, Zoom issued an updated statement saying it had taken action against users outside mainland China, including suspending accounts and shutting down meetings, which was “not in line with requirements” (fell short). It also said it would not allow the Communist regime’s demands to affect any users outside of China in the future.
According to prosecutors, Jin Xinjiang was also involved in a plan to infiltrate several Tiananmen memorial meetings hosted by Chinese American pro-democracy activists in May and June.
He and his co-conspirators allegedly fabricated evidence to mislead people into thinking that participants in these meetings, violated Zoom’s terms of service, such as: inciting violence, supporting terrorist organizations or distributing child pornography.
Prosecutors say they then used this fabricated evidence to convince U.S.-based Zoom executives to cancel the meetings and suspend the accounts of these pro-democracy activists.
The Jin Xinjiang case does not appear to be an isolated one. The court complaint (court complaint) details a series of other incidents since June 2019 in which the company has complied with censorship requests from the Chinese Communist authorities, particularly in relation to users outside of China. Communist authorities have consistently said that if they do not cooperate, Zoom will be excluded from the Chinese market.
On Friday, Zoom said in a separate statement that it had cooperated with federal investigators and had launched an internal investigation, saying that Jin Xinjiang had shared “a limited amount of personal user data” with Communist authorities, as well as data on fewer than 10 users located outside of China. The company said Jin Xinjiang has been fired, while other employees have been placed on leave pending an internal investigation.
Working with China’s Communist Party
Xinjiang Jin, 39, held the position of “head of security technology” at the Zoom office in eastern China’s Zhejiang province. Prosecutors said he led the company’s efforts to comply with Communist Party censorship directives.
Communist censorship requires all communications companies operating in China to monitor and censor speech that the Communist Party does not approve of, including topics critical of the Communist regime and speech by certain faith groups. The regime also requires foreign companies to store data on Chinese subscribers, on servers located within China. Companies that do not comply risk being blocked in the Chinese market.
According to the complaint, as Zoom’s primary liaison with the CCP authorities, Jin Xinjiang received instructions from several agencies of the CCP authorities, including: the Office of the Central Committee for Network Security and Informatization of the Communist Party of China (CAC), the Ministry of State Security (MSS), and the Ministry of Public Security (MPS) of the Communist Party of China.
Jin Xinjiang is responsible for actively monitoring Zoom for discussion sessions deemed “illegal” by the CCP. For example, according to the complaint, an FBI agent said that in August 2019 Jin Xinjiang selected a meeting of a Christian group on Zoom’s U.S. server. Xinjiang Jin told his U.S. colleagues that the group was a “Chinese cult” and that its account should be blocked because it discussed Christian content.
Subsequently, the U.S. colleague instructed Jin Xinjiang that the account could be placed in “quarantine” status, forcing the user to abandon use of the Zoom platform.
In early September 2019, the Chinese Communist regime blocked Zoom’s operations in China. The lawsuit alleges that in order to resume operations, Zoom needed to submit a “rectification plan” to the Chinese authorities.
According to FBI agents, under the plan, Zoom agreed to proactively monitor communications for topics deemed unacceptable by the Chinese Communist Party, migrate the data of approximately one million Chinese users from the United States to Chinese servers, and provide special access to Zoom’s systems to the Communist Party’s security services.
Zoom’s China service was subsequently restored in November 2019.
Growing Communist Party Control
The suit alleges that Zoom’s use skyrocketed under the COVID-19 pandemic. Chinese Communist authorities then imposed tighter controls on the company. Communist authorities required Zoom to develop the ability to terminate any “illegal” meetings or block any accounts within one minute, known as the “one minute processing requirement.
This requirement was eventually extended to overseas users. In an April 29 discussion with his U.S. colleagues, Jin Xinjiang explained that Communist authorities “require [Zoom employees] to have the authority to process directly and within one minute … otherwise it would not be in compliance with security regulations,” according to the suit.
Court documents show that Jin Xinjiang explained to his U.S. colleagues that censorship and other requirements of the Communist Party’s security agencies must be kept confidential.
In the April exchange, Jin Xinjiang referred to previous conversations with Zoom’s chief operating officer, general counsel and head of compliance. The three executives said they were obligated to report China processing requirements to Zoom’s compliance team in the United States. Jin told his U.S. colleagues that “it’s not in line” with the Chinese Communist Party’s request for confidentiality.
Although Xinjiang Jin did not have access to data on Zoom’s U.S. servers, FBI agents said that with the help of U.S. colleagues, Xinjiang was able to access the data to comply with the CCP regime’s instructions.
In an April discussion, the U.S. employee suggested that another U.S. employee could give Jin Xinjiang access to a “remote” machine in the United States that was connected to servers and systems in the United States. Jin Xinjiang replied that the matter needed to be handled confidentially, outside of regular company procedures, and that he could not document his actions in the report.
Prior to the June 4 anniversary of Tiananmen Square, Jin Xinjiang warned his U.S. colleagues that Communist Party security agencies were increasing their scrutiny of Zoom. According to the complaint, Jin told the colleague on May 19 that the Communist Party’s “Internet police” were tracking all “Chinese users” on Zoom’s U.S. servers.
(The Communist government will set up cybersecurity police units at major Internet companies to tightly control online forums.)
In the same discussion, Jin Xinjiang said that the Chinese Ministry of State Security and the Ministry of Public Security are coming to the company with increasing frequency, and that the Ministry of State Security has asked Zoom to sign a non-disclosure agreement to keep the Communist Party’s requests confidential.
They also discussed the issue of banning mainland Chinese users from signing up for free accounts on the platform, to which the U.S. employee replied that they would release a web package the next day to address the issue.
Jin Xinjiang replied that “from the perspective of the Ministry of Public Security’s cybersecurity staff, we need to deal with Chinese users wherever they are; if we don’t, they will start the Great Firewall or some other method to ban them.”
This exchange shows the enormous pressure from the Chinese Communist authorities behind Zoom’s suspension of free registration for Chinese users in May. It later switched to a “partner-only” model in China, canceling applications from Chinese users.
Delivery of Overseas User Data to Chinese Authorities
The lawsuit states that in May, Jin Xinjiang repeatedly asked its U.S. colleagues to provide user data from outside China and close their accounts to meet the CCP’s censorship demands, which included many U.S. users.
For example, on June 1, Jin Xinjiang relayed to his U.S. colleague instructions from the CCP’s Ministry of State Security (MSS) to provide user information on all “Chinese” attendees at a Tiananmen Square memorial meeting hosted by a Chinese-American dissident the previous day.
In response, U.S. employees provided Jin Xinjiang with the details of the U.S. account holder, including name and email address. They also closed the account and provided Jin Xinjiang with the names and IP addresses of all attendees of the May 31 meeting, including U.S. users.
In another case, Jin Xinjiang followed instructions from the CCP’s Ministry of Public Security (MPS) to ask U.S. employees to provide data on “Xinjiang users,” including “global” accounts that were not stored on Chinese servers.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has conducted mass detentions of local Muslim minorities in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, and has launched a comprehensive surveillance program. At the request of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, U.S. employees sent a spreadsheet containing account IDs and user IDs for about 23,000 users.
Zoom said the data was anonymous and that “there is no reason to believe that it has been shared with the Chinese government.
Democracy activists: Accountability is the first step toward justice
“Humanitarian China is a U.S.-based human rights group. Its founder, Zhou Fenglock, a former Tiananmen student leader, hosted the aforementioned May 31 event, which was watched by about 4,000 people worldwide. He recalls that many of the speakers from China that day were only able to broadcast pre-recorded messages due to pressure from the Chinese Communist authorities. Still, many were detained by the Chinese Communist Party.
In an interview with the Epoch Times, he said the prosecution was “the first step in upholding justice” and should serve as a warning to other companies that compromise for profit.
He added that the fact that Jin Xinjiang allegedly acted under the direction of Communist Party intelligence officials also shows that when U.S. companies go to China, “it’s no longer a business partnership, it’s a direct partnership with the regime,” and “they become part of the regime’s apparatus for suppressing pro-democracy activists and violating human rights.
He said it is even more important for companies like Zoom, which have strong economic clout in a variety of U.S. industries, to be scrutinized more closely and held accountable for their complicity with Beijing.
“Any company, whether you’re based in the United States or in China, you have to submit to the will of the regime.” Zhou Fenglock said.
“Photo of Zhou Fenglock, founder of Humane China and former June 4 student. (Ma Youzhi/The Epoch Times)
John C. Demers, the U.S. deputy attorney general for national security, echoed this in a statement, saying, “Any company with significant business interests in China is not immune to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party.”
He said that while the Communist Party is trying to stifle the freedom of expression of the Chinese people around the world, corporate executives may be “forced to get involved in a more recent crackdown” in order to enable companies to grow in China.
Earlier this year, researchers discovered that Zoom encrypted U.S. calls through servers in Beijing, causing widespread controversy. The company later admitted that it had “mistakenly” added Chinese servers because of a surge in calls during the virus pandemic.
The Trump administration ordered this summer that the popular short-form video App TikTok must find a U.S. buyer or its Beijing-based parent company, Bytedance, could share user data with Communist authorities, and the company is currently in talks with Walmart and Oracle to transfer U.S. user data to a new entity.
In another example highlighting the challenges facing U.S. companies in China, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that Airbnb’s former chief trust officer, also known as the chief of trust, abruptly resigned last year amid concerns that the rental platform was sharing too much data with Chinese Communist authorities.
Airbnb hired Sean Joyce, a former deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), for the position in May 2019. Sean Joyce was alarmed by the lack of transparency about how much data the company was actually sharing with the Chinese Communist Party, including U.S. citizens who travel to China.
In a conversation with the company’s senior leadership, he reportedly outlined the concern, with co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk telling Joyce, “We’re not here to promote American values.”
William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC), said during a panel discussion earlier this month that Americans should be more aware of the issue.
“When we register with these companies … these apps, are we OK with our data being given to the intelligence services of a communist country to use?” Evanina said.
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