M365 Changelog: (Updated) Microsoft Teams: Updated labels for external participants in meetings

MC716008 – Updated March 20, 2024: Microsoft has completed the rollout for Worldwide. Microsoft will not be rolling out to GCC, GCC High or DoD organizations at this time and will communicate via Message center when we are ready to proceed. Microsoft apologizes for any inconvenience.

In our continuous drive to increase the security of Microsoft Teams meetings, Microsoft is updating the labels for the participants’ names. To bring in consistency and accuracy to the user labels, Microsoft is introducing the term Unverified, which will be seen for all meeting participants who do not have a trusted relationship with the organizer. All participants who are not part of the organizer’s organization but are configured as a trusted relationship with the organizer will continue to be termed as External.

Additionally, Microsoft is ensuring that all areas within Team meetings – lobby, participant roster, meeting chat, and so on – will consistently show accurate user labels.

When this will happen:

Standard Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out mid-February 2024 and expect to complete by early March 2024 for all the in-meeting participant views. Other areas within Teams meetings will soon follow with these updates. This will be announced in a future post.

How this will affect your organization:

Organizers and meeting participants in your organization who attend meetings with users outside of their organization – with or without a Microsoft Entra ID – will see the changes in labels that reflect the trust level of the participant with the organizer (External, Unverified, or no label).

• No label: All participants who are part of the organizer’s organization.
• External: All participants who are external to the organizer’s organization but have a trusted relationship with the organizer or their organization.
• Unverified: All other participants will be seen with this label. This will include Microsoft Entra ID users who belong to organizations that do not have an explicit external access setup with the organizer’s organization, Microsoft Account (personal) users, users who are not using any Microsoft ID while joining meetings, and others.

What you need to do to prepare:

To prepare for this change, share this information with the meeting organizers who regularly invite participants outside of their organizations.