'I Looked at All the Ways Microsoft Teams Tracks Users and My Head is Spinning'

An anonymous reader shares a report: As far back as June, Microsoft explained in somewhat legalistic terms that it's happily recording so much Teams activity for the benefit of employers and it's up to them what they do with it. Sample wording from Redmond's fine lawyers: 'Our customers are controllers for the data provided to Microsoft, as set forth in the Online Services Terms, and they determine legal bases of processing.' From what I could see, Teams hoovers up all your chats, voicemails, shared meetings, files, transcriptions, your profile details including your email address and phone number, and a detailed analysis of what you were wearing on the call. (I may have made up that last one.) Cut to September and Microsoft offered a little more about the Teams Activity Report (since updated). Here's a sentence that's unsurprising but still a touch uncomfortable: 'The table gives you a breakdown of usage by user.' Everything from how many meetings that user organized to how many urgent messages they sent is recorded. Separate numbers are given for scheduled meetings and those that were ad hoc. Even individuals' screen-share time is there. It's remarkably detailed. But, I hear you cry, is it detailed enough?

In October, then, Redmond offered 'a new analytics and reporting experience for Microsoft Teams.' (This was updated last week.) I confess that just staring at this made me swivel several times in wonder. Microsoft is measuring privacy settings, device types, time stamps, reasons why someone may have been blocked, and 'the number of messages a user posted in a private chat.' I know you'll tell me this is all normal. This is entirely what's to be expected in today's techno-marvelous world. Yet, as far as I could tell, employees don't have too much say in all this. They're forced onto a particular platform without much control over what that platform may record about them personally, with their employer being the potential beneficiary. I imagined an individual -- or even a whole team -- being summoned by their boss and told: 'You didn't respond to 47 Teams messages last month.' What do you say to that? 'Well, I suspect those 47 messages were sent by brown-nosing halfwits who send as many Teams messages as possible, so their innate industry shows up on your Teams analytics reports.'

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