I’ve noticed all the ways that Microsoft Teams tracks users and my head is spinning

My head is recovering from a kind of pivot.

You see, a few weeks ago, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated in an interview with Financial Times, that Teams could soon be a digital platform as important as the Internet browser. Yes, Microsoft Teams.

It scared me a little. The world seems to have changed quite quickly lately.

I thought of all those employees who work from home, real people who were put on the teams. I wondered if they like it. I also wondered how much it records what they do.

See, that became an especially poignant issue when Microsoft fell into a puddle of controversy with its 365 Productivity Score feature – since modified – one that seemed to evaluate individual employees for its alleged production.

So I ran out to find details on how Teams captures data and delivers it to customers – and to look at nuances from an employee perspective.

Working as a team with information.

Back in June, Microsoft explained in somewhat legalistic terms that it is happily recording many Teams activities for the benefit of employers and that it is up to them what to do with it.

Wording example from the excellent lawyers of Redmond: “Our customers are controllers of the data provided to Microsoft, as set out in the Online Services Terms, and they determine the legal basis for processing.”

From what I could see, Teams lists all of your chats, voice mails, shared meetings, files, transcripts, your profile details, including your email address and phone number, and a detailed analysis of what you were wearing on the call. (I may have invented the latter.)

Cut to September and Microsoft offered a little more about the Team Activity Report (since updated). Here is a phrase that is not surprising, but still a little uncomfortable: “The table provides a breakdown of usage by user.”

Everything, from how many meetings that user organized to how many urgent messages he sent, is recorded. Separate numbers are provided for scheduled meetings and those that have been ad hoc. Even individuals’ screen-sharing time is there.

It is extremely detailed. But, I hear you cry, is it detailed enough?

In October, then, Redmond offered “a new analysis and reporting experience for Microsoft Teams”. (This was updated last week.)

I confess that just looking at it made me spin several times in wonder. Microsoft is measuring privacy settings, device types, timestamps, reasons why someone may have been blocked, and “the number of messages a user posted in a private chat”.

I know you will tell me that this is all normal. This is entirely what is expected in today’s wonderful world of technology.

Still, as far as I can tell, employees don’t have much to say about all of this. They are forced to a specific platform without much control over what that platform can record about them personally, with their employer being the potential beneficiary.

I imagined an individual – or even an entire team – being summoned by his boss and said, “You haven’t responded to 47 messages from teams in the past month.”

What do you think? “Well, I suspect these 47 messages were sent by intransigent imbeciles who send as many messages from Teams as possible, so their innate industry appears in their analytical Teams reports.”

Not everyone on the teams is happy.

Some employees are clearly concerned about the extent of the teams’ potential surveillance work. A Reddit topic last year offered a small glimpse of employees’ concerns. Example: “Since I switched to remote work full time, I can’t help feeling that my boss is using teams to monitor and evaluate our productivity. Is this something I should be concerned about or am I paranoid?”

Can it be both?

I understand that there is a belief that the more data you have, the wiser you will be. But I couldn’t help asking Microsoft if there was any reason for the employees’ concern here. For example, does Teams actually record the actual messages that a user posts in a Teams chat? I also asked if there was anything an individual employee could do to improve the privacy of their own teams.

A company spokesman told me, “At Microsoft, we believe that data-based insights are crucial to enabling people and organizations to achieve more.”

Ah, is it all about achievement? A noble quest, for sure. But you can empower people in other ways, can’t you?

The Microsoft spokesman continued: “We also believe that privacy is a human right and we are deeply committed to the privacy of everyone who uses our products. Only the global administrator has rights to the analysis and reporting experience, which he provides insights into the ways the organization is using Microsoft Teams, not the content of the message itself. ”

I fear you will analyze these words carefully and still be a little concerned. You may be in a hurry to make super-special online friends with your global administrator.

There will certainly always be a concern that, even if a specific user is not identified, the global administrator will not have to work hard to find out who he is.

But is this good team management?

From Microsoft’s perspective, you can see the (commercial) dilemma. You want to impress your customers and get their full commitment to the entire team world, but you know that privacy is an important topic.

So you try and offer as much as you can, as close to the privacy line as possible. (And, in the case of the Productivity Index, in addition to it.)

I can’t help wondering, though, if all of this data digest reflects an obsessive mindset that can be the opposite of productivity and good management.

The more detailed analysis, if widely disseminated, could be manna for the micromanager and a certain kind of purgatory for the manager who believes that there is a little more instinct to lead and motivate human employees.

There is a talent for evaluating what employees actually do, as opposed to what the data can “say” they do.

Some may wonder if Microsoft’s customers are really begging for this kind of information or if that’s Redmond’s way of, as they say in the marketing department, calling Zoom, adding value and creating a competitive advantage.

A marketing mind may also wonder if an excellent way to sell videoconferencing products would be to boast about not collecting so much personal data. Oh, what am I saying? Teams can be as large as the Internet browser – and look at all the data collected by the browsers.

I wonder how many employees – and how many companies – currently know how much information is stored in Microsoft Teams.

Or have companies already invested in some of the best employee surveillance software that is now available?