Is Vimeo Safe?

Vimeo is, hands down, one of the most popular video streaming platforms on the planet. With around 260 million users in over 150 countries, the platform lets you upload, host, and share content with customers, clients, and co-workers.

But is Vimeo safe for video hosting? And if so, how safe?

These are legitimate questions, especially if you're considering the platform for corporate communications. Just think about the data you might share with the company. Where does all that data go? What does Vimeo do with it? Is there the risk of a data breach?

In this article we will answer these questions and help you determine if a Vimeo alternative could provide you with the security you deserve.

Why Should You Care About Online Security?

You need a streaming platform to host video content, but that raises all kinds of security issues. With data breaches on the rise, you need a video platform you can trust — one that keeps data secure and prevents hackers from infiltrating your content while also providing advanced security options. Otherwise, anyone can access the information you share in videos, such as sales figures, tax details, customer profile information, and other business-critical data. A data breach on a streaming platform could destroy your reputation and cost many thousands of dollars to resolve.

You should also care about video security because of the penalties imposed by government agencies for breaching data governance legislation. Your obligations under the GDPR (European Union), CCPA (California, USA), HIPAA (USA), and the Privacy Act (Australia) apply to information shared via video communications as well.

What Is Vimeo?

Vimeo is a video streaming website that lets you upload and share videos for a fee starting at $15 p/m for a single seat. However, most businesses upgrade to a premium tier, which comes with additional customization and security features, such as the ability to privatize your videos.

Related Reading: Vimeo vs. YouTube: What's the Right Choice for Your Business?

What Vimeo Says About Security

Vimeo has a broad range of security features that protect your videos from online threats such as data breaches and cyber attacks. "Vimeo engineers work hard to ensure that our site and users are 100% safe and sound," says the company on its website.

Here are some security features available to Vimeo users.

Video Privacy Settings

Decide who sees your content by setting videos to a specific privacy setting. Vimeo has several privacy options:

• Public: Anyone can watch your content on Vimeo’s public platform.
• Unlisted: Like YouTube’s unlisted setting, anyone can watch but only if they have a link.
• Only me: Only you and team members can view content.
• Password: Password-protect videos for additional privacy.

Private Live Videos

Decide who sees your live content by setting videos to a specific privacy setting.

Domain-Level Privacy

Decide which websites can embed your videos.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

An authentication method that requires users to verify their identities before they can watch content.

System for Cross-Domain Identity Management (SCIM)

An authentication method that manages user identities.

Data Sharing

Vimeo says it will never share your data with third parties.

Related Reading: Brightcove vs. Vimeo vs. Viostream

Is Vimeo Safe?

Despite the security capabilities listed above, Vimeo lacks some critical features available on other video streaming platforms. These features include:

• IP restrictions: You can't block users in specific countries or regions from viewing content. However, Vimeo might block certain regions from accessing all content on its platform if it suspects there's a security risk.
• Data Sovereignty: Vimeo stores your data in the cheapest location. In most cases, this will be outside the legal jurisdiction of your company & as such foreign governments may have access to your video data.

In 2019, a lawsuit claimed Vimeo collected and stored users' biometric information without their consent. In 2020, the company filed an appeal after a judge agreed the lawsuit could move forward. While there have been no published accounts of large-scale data breaches at Vimeo, 24 millions of their LiveStream user profiles were scraped in 2021. Information scraped included users details for the following:

• Username
• Social networks
• Email
• Time zone

Outside of this incident, Vimeo has a good record of user security.

In the end, the level of security you receive on Vimeo depends on how much you are willing to pay. Features like SSO, SCIM, and private live videos, for example, are only available on the Enterprise tier, Vimeo's most expensive pricing plan. 

If you are on the platform's free, Plus, Pro, Business, or Premium tiers, you won't get the same level of security as Enterprise users. Vimeo doesn't publish the price of its Enterprise plan on its website, so it's unclear how much this additional security costs.

Why Choose Viostream?

Viostream provides businesses like yours with unparalleled security so you can protect sensitive data and improve compliance:

• Domain whitelisting
• IP restrictions
• Single sign-on authentication (SSO)
• Geo restrictions
• Admin controlled user roles
• Workplaces
• Password policies
• Data Sovereignty

Viostream has provided organizations with enterprise-level security since 2002 and boasts privacy and data compliance features that improve communication and collaboration. Dive into some of these features with a free Viostream account, and have a taste of new video security possibilities.