Microsoft Teams Premium takes business meeting confidentiality to the next level. Microsoft MVP Jasper Oosterveld explores the advanced meeting protection features and shares insights on setting up meeting classification and protection policies for optimal security.
Microsoft Teams Premium protects your meetings, keeping confidential business conversations and related content private and secure. It’s like giving your meetings a James Bond touch of sophistication.
In a previous article about how admins can smoothly set up Teams Premium in their organization, I briefly touched on its advanced meeting protection features. In this article, we’ll dig deeper into these features.
But before we dive into the tech, it’s crucial to set up meeting classification and protection policies. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ensure your meetings are protected.
Let’s go!
Table of contents
Teams Premium advanced meeting protection features
To leverage this advanced protection, your organization needs Teams Premium licenses. With Teams Premium, you get:
- More control: Manage meeting settings like lobby, chat, chat copy, presentation, and recording functions with extended sensitivity label options.
- Watermark protection: Enforce watermarks using sensitivity labels, displaying the participant’s email address. This helps protect confidential info shared in meetings.
- Increased security: Ensure a higher level of security with end-to-end encryption using sensitivity labels.
- Organizer power: Meeting hosts can spotlight specific attendees’ avatars or video feeds, hiding others.
- Attendee privacy: Keep attendee names hidden in the stage, roster, and chat during meetings and webinars.
Define a classification and protection policy
Yes, Teams protects data by default. But there’s a risk of exposure when users gain access, leading to potential data leaks.
There’s a way to prevent this risk using Microsoft Purview Information Protection. With Purview, you can label and protect sensitive data, keeping it secure and inaccessible to unauthorized users.
The first step to successfully implementing Microsoft Purview Information Protection is to define a classification and protection policy. Here are some examples:
Microsoft Teams classification policy
| Classification | Description |
| Department | —Collaboration with internal colleagues. —The collaboration lifecycle does not have a start or end. |
| Project | —Collaboration with colleagues and/or guests. —The collaboration lifecycle has a start and end. |
Microsoft Teams protection policy
| Protection | Description |
| Department | —Private —No external access —New & existing guests —Browser only |
| Project | —Private —External access —New & existing guests —Browser only |
Data classification & protection policy
| Classification | Protection |
| Public | —Accessible to all employees (internal) or authorized individuals (external). —Data is not protected. |
| General | —Accessible to all employees. —Data is protected or is not protected. |
| Confidential | —Accessible for all employees (internal) or authorized persons (external). —Data is protected. |
Coordinating with your colleagues to define similar meeting policies is a good idea. To nail down these policies, just be aware of the different features you can use, like sensitivity labels and meeting templates.
Sensitivity label
Sensitivity labels allow your colleagues to classify—manually or automatically—sensitive information. These labels can provide an extra layer of security with encryption. Once sensitive content is encrypted, you’ll have one less worry!
Let’s look at the available settings for Teams meetings and chats:
You’ll notice that some features depend on each other. For instance, when you choose the “Control who can record” option, other choices are automatically turned off.
Once you configure and publish the sensitivity label, it becomes available within Microsoft Teams for the entire organization or a portion of it:
After selecting the label, some pre-configured options will be enabled, others locked.
Clicking on the More options button reveals all meeting options:
As the meeting organizer, you can toggle the meeting settings, such as enabling (or disabling) “Allow camera for attendees” and “Allow mic for attendees.”
The next set of requirements is available within meeting templates. Let’s explore them together!
Take control of meetings with Microsoft Teams Premium templates and labels
Teams Premium lets your organization create meeting templates for better control over settings typically managed by the meeting organizer. These meeting templates ensure consistent meeting experiences, enforce compliance, and align with business rules.
Choose options that match your needs to define meeting classifications and protection policies.
Security
| Option | Description |
| Sensitivity label | Specifies the meeting sensitivity label to be used for the meeting. Note that the sensitivity label may override certain options in the template. Once you save the template, the label can’t be changed in the template, but organizers can change the label if you leave the option unlocked. |
| Who can bypass the lobby? | Specifies who can bypass the lobby and join the meeting directly. |
| People dialing in can bypass the lobby | Specifies if people calling in by phone can bypass the lobby and join the meeting directly. |
| End-to-end encryption | Specify if you want the meeting to use end-to-end encryption. Recording and transcription won’t work if this is on. |
| Enable watermark for screenshare | Specifies if a watermark is overlaid on content that is shared on screen in the meeting. |
| Enable watermark for video | Specifies if a watermark is overlaid on attendees video feeds in the meeting. |
Audio and video
| Option | Description |
| Allow mic for attendees | When On, attendees can unmute. |
| Allow camera for attendees | When On, attendees can turn on their cameras. |
Recording and transcription
| Option | Description |
| Record meetings automatically | When On, meetings are recorded automatically. |
| Who can record | Specifies whether meetings can be recorded by organizers only or by organizers and presenters. |
Roles
| Option | Description |
| Announce when people dial in, join, or leave | Specify if you want a sound to play when people call in by phone, join or leave the meeting. |
In case you apply a sensitivity label within the meeting template, certain features are enabled or disabled.
Once you set up the meeting template, you can assign it to the whole organization or a specific group. It will then be ready to use in Microsoft Teams.
Honestly, I find it puzzling that there are two different places for meeting settings and policies. It would be easier if all features could be in one spot instead of a mix between the label and a meeting.
Like any new technology, there are some limitations. Just remember, tech’s always evolving, so these hiccups might not stick around for long.
I’m excited to share how Microsoft Teams Premium can truly elevate your meeting and chat experience. Sure, an extra license is needed, but the added features pack a punch of business value. This is especially great for organizations diving into important discussions – think sensitive matters, where Teams Premium shines bright!
Jasper Oosterveld is a Microsoft MVP and Data Security Consultant specializing in Microsoft Purview and Microsoft 365. With great passion, he inspires and helps you implement compliance, governance, and adoption within Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. Interested in learning from him? He loves to share his expertise and love for Microsoft products!
