M365 Changelog: Prevent attendees from sharing video feed in Microsoft Teams Meetings

MC244745 – Updated April 22, 2021: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Meeting organizers and presenters will be able to prevent meeting attendees from turning their camera on to share video during a meeting. Currently meeting organizers and presenters have no control over whether meeting attendees can share video.

This feature is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs 70620 and 70621.

When this will happen

Rollout begins early May (previously mid-April) and should complete in mid-May (previously late April). 

How this will affect your organization?

By default, meeting attendees will be able to turn their camera on or off to share video, which is the current experience.

There are three ways that meeting organizers or presenters may manage the attendees’ camera.

Before a meeting, the meeting organizer can set Enable camera for attendees to Off from the Meeting Options web page. By default this is on, which means that attendees can turn share their video feed. Note that this change does not mean attendees will be forced to share video. 

Meeting option page with a new setting to choose whether attendees can use their camera to share video:

During a meeting, either the organizer or a presenter can reverse that setting so that all attendees can turn their camera on. They can also enable or disable the camera of individual attendees.

Option to disable or enable camera for an individual attendee after a meeting begins by right clicking on that attendee from the meeting stage or roster:

Note: This setting only affects meeting attendees. It does not affect video for presenters or the meeting organizer.

What you need to do to prepare?

Please inform your users about this functionality and share user documentation so they are aware of the limitations.

Learn more: Roles in a Teams meeting