The Conference Room With a Window
When people say a platform is “encrypted,” they almost always mean transport encryption — data is scrambled while it travels between your device and the platform’s servers. Think of it like a sealed envelope moving through the postal system. The contents are protected in transit. But the post office can still open it.
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is different. With true E2EE, only the participants hold the keys. The platform itself cannot decrypt the content of your call. Think of it as a conversation in a language only you and the other person speak.
The major platforms — Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet — all offer E2EE now. But “offer” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It is almost universally not the default. Teams E2EE only covers one-on-one calls — not group meetings. On Zoom, enabling E2EE turns off cloud recording and phone dial-in. Most organizations haven’t enabled it at all.
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