I’ve looked at all the ways Microsoft Teams track users and turn my head

My head recovers from something of a pivot.

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

It scared me a little. The world seems to have moved too late.

I thought of all the workers from home, real people who were pushed into Teams. I was wondering if they like it. I also wondered how much it takes up what they do.

You see, it became a particularly gripping issue when Microsoft plunged into a puddle of controversy with its 365 productivity feature – since changed – one that individual employees looked like for their alleged production.

That’s why I set out to get details on how Teams capture data and deliver it to customers – and to look at the nuances from the perspective of employees.

Work with information.

As early as June, Microsoft explained in somewhat legalistic terms that it was happily taking up so many Teams activities for the benefit of employers, and it was up to them what they were doing with it.

Example wording of Redmond’s good advocates: “Our clients are controllers of the data provided to Microsoft, as set forth in the Online Terms of Service, and they determine the legal basis of the processing.”

From what I could see, Teams keeps track of all your chats, voicemails, shared meetings, files, transcripts, your profile details, including your email address and phone number, and a detailed analysis of what you wore during the call. (I may have made up the last one.)

Cut to September and Microsoft has offered a bit more on the Teams Activity Report (since updated). Here’s a sentence that is not surprising, but still uncomfortable: “The table outlines the usage per user.”

Everything is recorded from how many meetings the user has arranged to how many urgent messages they have sent. Separate numbers are given for scheduled meetings and the ad hoc meetings. Even individuals’ screen part-time is there.

This is remarkably detailed. But I hear you crying, is that detailed enough?

In October, Redmond presented a new analytics and reporting experience to Microsoft Teams. (It was updated last week.)

I confess that I have only stared at myself in amazement a few times hereafter. Microsoft measures privacy settings, device types, timestamps, reasons why someone may have been blocked, and “the number of messages a user has placed in a private chat.”

I know you’ll tell me this is normal. This is quite what is to be expected in today’s technological world.

Yet, as far as I could tell, employees do not have too much say over it all. They are forced on a particular platform without much control over what that platform can personally take up from them, with their employer as the potential beneficiary.

I imagined an individual – or even an entire team – being summoned by their boss and being told, ‘You did not respond to 47 Teams messages last month.’

What do you say to that? “Well, I suspect the 47 messages were sent by brown users who send as many Teams messages as possible, so that their innate industry appears in your Teams analysis reports.”

Not everyone in the teams is happy.

Some employees are clearly concerned about the extent of the potential oversight work of Teams. A thread from Reddit last year gave a small peek into the concerns of employees. Example: “Since I work remotely after full time job, I can not feel that my boss uses Teams to monitor and evaluate our productivity. Is this something I should worry about or am I paranoid?”

Could it be both?

I understand that the belief is that the more data you have, the wiser you will be. But I could not help asking Microsoft if there are any causes for employee concern here. For example, do Teams really record the actual messages a user posts in a Teams chat? I also asked if there is anything an individual employee can do to improve their own privacy of Teams.

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

Oh, it’s all about performance? A noble pursuit, surely. But you can empower people in other ways, right?

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

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

Surely there will always be concerns that, even if a specific user is not identified, the global administrator does not have to work too hard to discover who he is.

But is it good team management?

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

So you try to offer as much as possible, as close to the privacy line as possible. (And, in the case of productivity statement, beyond that.)

However, I can not help wondering if all this digestion of data reflects an obsessive mentality that may be the opposite of productivity and good governance.

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

There is a talent for appreciating what employees actually do, as opposed to what the data “says” what they do.

Some people may ask themselves if Microsoft’s customers are actually begging for this kind of information, or is it Redmond’s way of, as they say in the marketing department, calling Zoom, adding value and creating a competitive advantage.

A marketing thinker may also wonder if a great way to sell video conferencing products is to brag about the fact that it does not take up as much personal data. Oh, what do I say? Teams can be as big as the internet browser – and look at all the information that browsers collect.

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

Or have the companies already invested in some of the fine employee oversight programs that are now available?