Microsoft Teams to Bolster Meeting Security with Updated Labels for External Participants

Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft Teams is getting a new “unverified” label for external participants lacking a trusted relationship with the meeting organizer.
• These labels will be visible to both organizers and participants attending meetings with users from external organizations.
• The new feature will roll out next month for in-meeting participant views in Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft is set to roll out updated participant labels to bolster security in Teams meetings. The new ‘unverified’ label will be displayed next to participants who do not have a trusted relationship with the meeting 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, we are ensuring that all areas within Team meetings – lobby, participant roster, meeting chat, and so on – will consistently show accurate user labels,” the company explained on the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Microsoft states that the upcoming label changes will be visible to both organizers and participants attending meetings with users from outside of their external organizations. The following three labels will reflect the trust level between attendees and the meeting organizer:

• No label: Microsoft Teams will not display any label for participants belonging to the same organization.
• External: This label will be visible next to all participants who have a trusted relationship with the organizer or their organization.
• Unverified: The “unverified” label will be applicable to all other participants, such as Microsoft Entra ID users without explicit external access setup with the organization. This will also include users with personal Microsoft accounts or those who join meetings without any Microsoft ID.

Microsoft Teams’ updated participant labels to roll out next month

Microsoft says that the new feature will be available for all in-meeting participant views in March 2024. The company also plans to expand this capability to other areas within Teams meetings, though there is no ETA yet.

Earlier this month, Microsoft released an improved version of the Copilot app in Microsoft Teams. This new app offers all the functionalities of the previous one while bringing several enhancements, including improved prompts, access to Copilot chat history, and more.