Require a watermark for sensitive Teams meetings

• Applies to:

  Microsoft Teams

Some features described in this article require Teams Premium.

You can enable a watermark to be displayed in Teams meetings both for content shared on screen and for attendee video. The watermark displays the email address of the meeting participant. Each participant will see their own email address overlaid on the meeting video or shared content. This deters participants from taking unauthorized screenshots of the meeting content.

Watermarks are supported on Teams desktop, mobile, and Microsoft Teams Rooms. People joining meetings from unsupported platforms will have an audio-only experience.

The following participants have an audio-only experience when a watermark is in use:

• Participants using the Teams web client
• Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) participants
• Anonymous participants
• Overflow participants
• Older Teams clients
• Direct Guest Join on Microsoft Teams Rooms devices
• Cloud Video Interop (CVI). Check with your CVI partner for watermark support information.

Note

Meeting settings in sensitivity labels, custom meeting templates, and watermarks require Teams Premium.

Meeting watermarks are enabled in the Teams admin center. They can then be added by the meeting organizer (the organizer must have a Teams Premium license) or enforced by a template or sensitivity label.

The following table shows where watermarks are configured:

Setting	Admin policy	Sensitivity label	Template	Meeting organizer
Apply a watermark to shared content	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Apply a watermark to everyone's video feed	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

When a watermark is being used in a meeting, the following features are turned off:

• Large gallery

• Together mode

• PowerPoint Live

• Whiteboard

• Content from camera

Watermarks for sensitive and highly sensitive meetings

Watermarks can be useful for protecting confidential information shared in meetings. This is most useful when sharing information with people who don't normally have access to the information. For example, a member of the finance organization might use watermarks when sharing quarterly estimates with managers from different divisions.

Since watermarks are designed to reduce the chances that confidential information will be exfiltrated, using them in meetings where all the participants have direct access to the content being shared may not add to security.

For information about using watermarks with other meeting features to help protect confidential information in meetings, see Configure Teams meetings with protection for highly sensitive data.

Meeting recordings

If a meeting with a watermark is recorded, the watermark is applied at playback time by Microsoft Stream. Viewers of the recording see their own email address as a watermark on the video. If the recording file is edited or moved, the watermark won't be available at playback time.

By default, download of the meeting recording (.mp4) file is disabled for recordings of meetings with a watermark. However, the person who recorded the meeting can change that permission. Downloaded .mp4 files don't contain a watermark.

Configure watermarks

For watermarks to be available to the meeting organizer, they must be enabled in the Teams admin center. (Watermarks are enabled by default.) Note that sensitivity labels can enforce watermarks even if they're turned off for the meeting organizer in the Teams admin meeting policy.

To configure watermarking for meetings

1. In the Teams admin center, expand Meetings and select Meeting policies.

2. Select the policy you want to update.

3. To configure watermark on attendee video, set Watermark videos to On or Off.

4. To configure watermark on content shared on screen in a meeting, set Watermark shared content to On or Off.

   

5. To set the watermark pattern or transparency, or see a preview, select Edit settings. Select Apply if you make changes.

6. Select Save.

You can also enable or disable watermarks by using PowerShell. Use the Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet with the -AllowWatermarkForCameraVideo and -AllowWatermarkForScreenSharing parameters.

For example:

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -AllowWatermarkForCameraVideo $True 

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -AllowWatermarkForScreenSharing $True 

Related topics

Configure Teams meetings with three tiers of protection

Use Teams meeting templates, sensitivity labels, and admin policies together for sensitive meetings

Teams policies reference - Watermark