Microsoft Teams announces new security feature: can prevent forwarding confidential meeting chats

Microsoft has introduced a new premium feature for Microsoft Teams: “Turn off copying or forwarding of meeting chat.” This feature allows meeting organizers to restrict participants from copying or forwarding meeting chat messages, announced via the roadmap.

When this feature is enabled, meeting chat participants cannot copy messages using menu options or keyboard shortcuts. Additionally, forwarding messages and sharing them to Outlook will be disabled.

This feature can help to mitigate the risk of data leaks within meetings. By preventing participants from copying or forwarding messages, meeting organizers can help to protect sensitive information.

This feature is controlled by a new Meeting Policy setting in the Teams admin center. This setting allows admins to control user access and visibility of this feature on the Meeting Options page. Admins can also establish the default value for this meeting option within the Meeting Templates they create.

The Feature ID for this addition is 186675, with an inclusion date on the roadmap of 11/29/2023. This feature applies to Microsoft Teams across various platforms, including Desktop. It is set for release under the General Availability phase.

The rollout for this feature is scheduled to commence in January 2024. It will be accessible across multiple cloud instances, including Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD, and GCC.