Microsoft Adds Teams Issues Device Tracking for Office Presence
Microsoft is introducing a teams issues feature in Teams that can detect device activity and update a worker’s office presence even when the Teams tab is not open. The change gives managers a sharper view of availability, but it also widens the amount of workplace data Teams can collect.
When the feature is enabled, Teams will watch for activity on the user’s device outside the app. Microsoft says the update responds to common feedback about inaccurate presence status and is meant to improve collaboration visibility.
Alex Baird on Privacy Act
Auckland University expert Alex Baird said the data collected by the tool needs to be considered under the Privacy Act, and he drew a line between using a signal for coordination and using it for monitoring performance. “The Privacy Act is pretty clear on being thoughtful about why something is being collected and then only using it for that purpose,” he said.
Baird described the feature as an extension of Teams’ active status. He said organisations can configure whether it is turned on or off, and there is also an individual setting to switch it off.
Who Sees the Status
The practical risk is not the status ping itself but how widely it spreads inside a company. Baird said that if the feature is rolled out to a whole organisation on an opt-in basis, every employee has to consider it and manually turn off a setting, which is harder than a simple one-to-one choice.
He also said, “Does your line manager need to know where you are? Yeah, they need to be able to pop down and have a chat with you or jump on a call with you,” before adding, “But is it appropriate for everyone in the organisation to know? Perhaps not.”
Availability Versus Tracking
Microsoft says the tool is another way to understand people’s availability. Baird called it a very well-intentioned feature, but he warned that the same data could be framed very differently depending on why an organisation turns it on and what it uses it for. “So, if it's collected to help your teammates know where you are, great. Is it being collected for performance tracking? Well then that's a very different thing,” he said.
The unresolved question is how employers will draw that line in practice, because the product can be configured at the organisation level and also disabled by individual users.
