Teams Meeting Transcripts Deserve Protection

A bunch of changes have been rolling out for Teams meetings to tighten control over the artifacts generated during calls. The catalyst for the updates appears to be the recent change to store Teams meeting transcripts in OneDrive for Business. Meeting transcripts are critical artifacts in many ways because they are used as the basis for intelligent recaps, Copilot for Microsoft 365 queries, and closed captioning. Because transcripts can capture confidential information in participant contributions during calls, it’s sensible for organizations to protect this data appropriately. Let’s discuss the recent changes.

Controlling Access to Teams Meeting Transcripts and Recordings

First, MC795083 (22 May 2024) reports that meeting organizers can dictate who gets access to meeting recordings, transcript, and the AI recap (which is generated from the transcript). The setting to control access is now part of meeting options (Figure 1). Meeting participants not granted access still see the artifacts listed in meeting chat but won’t be able to open or download the files.

Associated with this change is message center notification MC781595 (last updated 13 June 2024, Microsoft 365 roadmap item 332800). As described, you might assume that Microsoft is introducing a new policy to allow tenant administrators to restrict permissions to download meeting transcript files. In fact, it’s an extension of the existing SharePoint Online block file download policy. Blocking downloads of Teams meeting recordings has existed since March 2023. Now that transcripts and full recordings are stored in MP4 files that look the same, the block download policy for Teams meeting recordings apply to the transcript-only files too. The downside is that the block file download policy requires SharePoint advanced management licenses.

Change to Participant Agreement Policy Setting

Teams meetings can be either transcribed or recorded. In both cases, Teams generates an MP4 file that’s stored in the meeting organizer’s OneDrive for Business account. The difference between transcription only and full recording is that the MP4 file for full recording contains a video stream and transcript while transcript files only contain the captions that collectively form the meeting transcript.

In any case, message center notification MC794819 (21 May 2024) reports that the participant agreement setting (aka explicit consent) in Teams meeting policies (Figure 2) now covers processing of all types of user generated content, including transcript only MP4 files and the analysis of a meeting generated by Copilot for Microsoft 365 from the meeting chat and transcript.

When the policy setting is enabled for a meeting where recording or transcription is used, participants must indicate their consent to be recorded by unmuting their microphone, enabling their camera, or sharing their screen (any of the 3 actions will do). If the participant fails to heed the warning (Figure 3) and give consent, they can participate in the call in view-only mode.

No Enriched Audit Records for Teams Meetings

One update that I see no sign of is the change announced in MC791598 (last updated 22 May 2024) to “enrich” audit records for Teams meetings with consent data. This information is available in attendance reports, which capture actions to turn unmute microphones or turn on cameras (both meaning a user gives consent). However, I see no trace of any ‘Added information about meeting participants” audit records despite the promise that worldwide deployment would complete in mid-June 2024 and the description in Microsoft documentation.

Taking Care of Generated Notes

Teams meeting transcripts can be a tremendously valuable tool, especially when generative AI uses transcripts to produce recaps of meetings for those who can’t attend an event or those who need a little help to remember commitments made during calls. Although the captured text isn’t guaranteed 100% accurate (and won’t be more than 95% in my experience), it’s still better than most attempts to capture what happens during meetings in handwritten notes. The downside is the need to protect transcripts. The changes described here help.

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Teams Meeting Transcripts Exclusively Stored in OneDrive for Business

Microsoft is making a bunch of changes to the handling of Teams meeting transcripts. The most important change is the standardization on OneDrive for Business as the storage location for transcript information, described in message center notification MC726122 (last updated 1 May 2024, Microsoft 365 roadmap item 365720). Targeted release tenants will see the change in early June 2024 and Microsoft hopes to achieve worldwide general availability by late August 2024.

In 2021, Teams was the first application to move workload to the Stream on SharePoint platform. Stream was in the middle of a transition from the old Azure-based application to Stream on SharePoint, and customers still had the option to use either platform. During the transition, Stream stopped creating transcripts automatically for newly uploaded videos. Seeking stability and to support indexing of transcripts, Teams stored the transcript information in the meeting organizer’s Exchange Online mailbox.

Now, Stream on SharePoint is the only option for video storage and automatic transcript generation is performed, so meeting recordings end up with transcripts stored in Exchange Online and Stream. Microsoft is rationalizing the situation by eliminating the copy stored in Exchange Online. This step makes perfect sense because it is consistent with the way that Stream handles transcripts for other videos.

How Teams Meeting Transcripts are Generated

Microsoft is beginning by implementing the change for Teams meeting recordings that only have a transcript (no audio or video content is captured). This happens when a meeting organizer enables a transcript without recording. In the past, Teams wrote the transcript into Exchange Online. When the change is effective, Teams creates an MP4 file in the Recording folder of the meeting organizer’s OneDrive for Business account. To create the file, the normal bot that joins meetings to listen to the audio feed from participants to create the transcript, generates the transcript as normal and then removes the audio track, leaving the MP4 file with just the VTT-formatted captions that compose the transcript.

Figure 1 shows a OneDrive for Business account with two meeting recordings. The first contains only a transcript. The second is a regular recording. Note the “meeting transcript” suffix used for the first and “meeting recording” for the second.

Teams will still write a copy of the transcript for transcript-only recordings into Exchange Online. The situation is different for Teams meeting recordings with audio. The transcript for these recordings is stored in the MP4 file. A copy is also stored in Exchange Online. In other cases, Microsoft emphasizes that Teams will only use the transcript stored in OneDrive for Business.

Phase Out of Exchange Storage for Teams Meeting Transcripts

Eventually, Teams will cease writing a copy into Exchange Online so that the only transcript data is that stored in OneDrive for Business. Microsoft says, “At the same time, meeting transcripts will stop saving in Exchange Online altogether and all transcript storage will be standardized on OneDrive only.” I’m unsure what is meant by “at the same time.”

As you’d expect, standardization on a single location makes it easier to delete transcripts either by the meeting organizer or by retention policies (both the recording and transcript can be removed at the same time).

More Help Coming to Manage Consent and Access

Meeting transcripts are more important now than ever before. Apart from providing captions during playback of meeting recordings, the Teams Premium intelligent recap facility uses transcripts to generate meeting notes and action items. They’re also used by Copilot for Microsoft 365 to allow users to ask questions about meeting proceedings.

To protect the privacy of people and make sure that transcripts are only generated for meetings where everyone consents to recordings, Microsoft has several changes in the pipeline to better manage consent and access, including:

• MC781595: Policy to control the download of Teams meeting recordings. Requires SharePoint-Syntex advanced management licenses.
• MC791598: Consent given by users for recording is captured in the audit logs (requirement for consent must be enabled in the Teams meeting policy)
• MC794819: Explicit consent for all forms of recording.
• MC764456: Explicit consent to transcribe a meeting.
• MC795083: Policy to manage access to meeting transcripts, recordings, AI-generated recap, and Copilot features.

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