Teams chat history access by invited guests

Question

Hi all,

We have a meeting and there are invited guests. We don't want the invited guests to have access to any other chat history except for the meeting they attend. Is there any way to do this?

Many thanks for your help.

Hannah

Answer 1

They will not have access to any chat, unless you add them to it explicitly. If you are referring to recurring meetings, Microsoft is rolling out a change in behavior:

Updates to meeting chat membership
MC226407, Plan For Change, Published date: Nov 11, 2020
Feature update, User impact
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Major update: Announcement

We are updating a meeting participant's access to meeting chat. These changes will manage a users access to a meeting chat based on how they were invited to the meeting.

Key Points:

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 68853
Timing: rollout will begin in early December and complete by mid-December
Rollout: Tenant level
Control: Managed by meeting participants invite to meeting

How this impacts your organization:

Once this has rolled out, the changes will apply to new meetings. These changes will not be applied to previously scheduled meetings.

A participants access to meeting chat will be dependent on how they were invited to the meeting:

Single meeting
    Original and forwarded invitees maintain access to chat.
    Directly added participants have access to chat for the duration of the meeting. Chat access is removed at meeting conclusion but they will be able to review the meeting chat history.
Recurring - Single instance of a meeting series
    Original invitees maintain access to chat.
    Forward invitees or directly added participants have access to chat for the duration of the meeting. Chat access is removed at meeting conclusion but they will be able to review the meeting chat history.

Note: These changes do not impact channel meetings.

What you need to do to prepare:

You may consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.

Answer 2

Hi @Hannah M ,

In my experience, you don’t need to invite these guests to your Teams. You can schedule the new meeting and share the Teams meeting link to these guest users. For more details about how to join Teams meeting as anonymous user, you can learn it from:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/join-a-meeting-without-a-teams-account-c6efc38f-4e03-4e79-b28f-e65a4c039508

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Answer 3

Update 68853 went live in April for general availability...but doesn't work as described above. I scheduled a meeting. Had a chat with a colleague in the meeting then added a new participant to the meeting. They contributed to the chat then left the meeting. They couldn't see the chat from the meeting before they joined...but after they left the meeting they continued to receive the chats even though they were no longer part of the meeting. I noticed that the roadmap wording seems to suggest this is only applicable when a user joins via a meeting link. I cant believe Microsoft think this is a good idea to continue to allow users access to chats they are no longer part of when added to a meeting on and ad hoc basis. The potential for GDPR beaches is huge in this scenario.