Updated, Oct. 24 with further reaction to this controversial Teams update.
Oh, dear! Microsoft has some bad news for millions of employees the world over, and it’s an object lesson for big tech: Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
A simple Microsoft 365 Roadmap update will now generate a raft of unhappy headlines. The idea is simple. “When users connect to their organization’s Wi-Fi, Teams will automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in.”
Forget the locational anonymity of a Teams virtual background. Teams will update your location when connected to your company’s Wi-Fi. On video, you may have your usual background complete with company logo. But your boss will know you’re not in the office.
Conversely, if you are at work and fancied some quiet time without interruption, Tech Radar, which spotted the overreach, warns “trying to get some peace in the office to get some work done might soon be a thing of the past.”
Location data is the gorilla in the cage when it comes to sensitive data collection. And while on the surface it’s easy to use Wi-Fi to detect when an employee is logged into the system as well as the building they’ve logged in from, pulling this data into Teams in such a way as to present it to others could create some awkward conversations.
“The feature is poised to reduce confusion at the workplace, allowing managers and employees to identify each other’s location in the office,” Windows Central explains. “It can be a productivity booster, meaning you’ll no longer have to manually look for your counterparts at the office or even give them a call; you can easily pinpoint their location via Teams as long as they are connected to the office’s WiFi network.”
Microsoft has already warned this type of monitoring is now rolling out. “When you connect to peripherals in a bring your own device (BYOD) room or at a bookable desk, your workplace presence in Teams will automatically be set to the building level”
Windows Central warns that while this update is intended as a productivity boost, “it can also be used to identify who’s not working from the office. This news comes after many organizations are rapidly ditching work-from-home and hybrid work arrangements.” With this in place, hiding becomes that much more difficult.
Per Windows Reports, “we can tell that Microsoft is aiming to make collaboration more seamless by ensuring colleagues always know where team members are working from.”
Microsoft says this will rollout from December. “Once released,” Windows Report says, “it will be available for Teams users on both Windows and Mac worldwide.” Given the responses, it will be interesting to see what actually happens when this is live. What’s clear, is that users will be more weary of where and when they’re logging in.
Just in time for the holidays.