Is it possible to create an Azure bot to record Teams meetings without compliance policies?

Question

Goal: I am trying to create an Azure bot (application hosted media bot in particular) that can access the audio stream of a Teams meeting that the bot is invited to in order to save the audio.

Information: I have looked into documentation for application hosted media bots and the the policy recording bot as it seemed to be the only example that dealt with recording a meeting. This led me to wonder if recording a meeting is only possible if it is tied to compliance policies or if there is any way to allow a bot to join the call and record without a policy attached to the user

Problem: The policy recording bot's recording function seems to be tied to compliance policies which I don't want to be a part of the bot I am trying to build.

Questions:

1. Am I allowed to use application hosted media bots to record meeting audio as long as I am calling the updateRecordingStatus endpoint? If so, how can I get a bot to join the call independently from the presence of a compliance policy?
2. Is it even possible to record meeting audio without a user being assigned a compliance policy?

Answer 1

Yes, you can use an application-hosted media bot to record meeting audio. The updateRecordingStatus endpoint is used to start or stop recording. However, the presence of a compliance policy is not a requirement for the bot to join the call and record audio.

To get the bot to join the call independently from the presence of a compliance policy, you can follow these steps:

• Register your bot and specify the required permissions and settings in the Teams app manifest. Make sure to include the supportsCalling and supportsVideo settings.
• Use the Microsoft.Graph.Communications.Calls.Media.NET library to access the audio and video media streams. This library provides the necessary APIs for real-time media processing.
• Deploy your bot on a Windows Server machine or a Windows Server guest OS in Azure. This is required for the bot to handle the media streams.
• Implement the logic in your bot to join the call and start recording the audio. You can use the updateRecordingStatus endpoint to initiate the recording.

And it is possible to record meeting audio without a user being assigned a compliance policy. The recording functionality of an application-hosted media bot is independent of compliance policies. As long as your bot has the necessary permissions and is able to access the audio stream of the meeting, it can record the audio without any specific compliance policy requirement.

Thanks, 

Prasad Das

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