Manage chat for sensitive Teams meetings
Some features described in this article require Teams Premium.
By default, all meeting attendees can chat both during and after a meeting. Meeting organizers can turn off meeting chat or allow chat only during the meeting.
If you have compliance requirements for certain types of meetings, you can manage how and when chat is enabled by using a combination of Teams admin policies, meeting templates, and sensitivity labels. You can also prevent copying chat content to the clipboard.
Note
Meeting options in sensitivity labels and custom meeting templates require Teams Premium.
The following table show what chat-related controls are available and where they can be managed.
| Setting | Admin policy | Sensitivity label | Template | Meeting organizer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meeting chat | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Organizer can restrict participants from copying or forwarding meeting chat messages, live captions, and transcripts | No* | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Q&A | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
You can use the Teams admin policy to allow or prevent meeting organizers from using the Organizer can restrict participants from copying or forwarding meeting chat messages, live captions, and transcripts feature, but can't enforce the use of the feature.
By default, chat is turned on for meeting participants. There are several ways you can manage chat:
- Prevent anonymous meeting participants from using chat
- Prevent the meeting chat from being used before or after the meeting
- Preventing copying of chat, captions, and transcripts
- Turn off the chat entirely
If you want to prevent anonymous meeting participants from using chat, you must use the Chat in meetings Teams admin policy to exclude them. Meeting organizers, meeting templates, and sensitivity labels can't control this setting.
Meeting organizers can specify that the chat only be available while the meeting is in progress. This can also be configured by using a meeting template or sensitivity label if you require this for certain types of meetings.
Prevent copying or forwarding chat, captions, and transcripts
Important
Allowing organizers to restrict participants from copying or forwarding meeting chat messages, live captions, and transcripts on mobile clients is only supported through sensitivity labels.
As an admin, you can choose whether organizers in your organization can restrict participants from copying or forwarding meeting chat messages, live captions, transcripts, and AI-generated insights in the meeting recaps. This setting also restricts forwarding and sharing messages to Outlook. By default, this per-organizer setting is set On.
You can require organizers to prevent copying or forwarding of chat messages, live captions, and transcripts with a meeting template or sensitivity label. If you don't enforce this option with a template or sensitivity label, meeting organizers can control this feature in their meeting options.
Allow participants to copy or forward chat messages, live captions, and transcripts
Note
Currently, prevent copy meeting option only applies to live captions, transcript and recap content inside of Teams.
If you want meeting participants to copy or forward meeting chat messages, you must use a Teams admin policy to turn off the setting. When you use a policy to turn off this feature, organizers won't see the Organizer can restrict participants from copying or forwarding meeting chat messages, live captions, and transcripts setting in their meeting options or template. Meeting organizers who have this feature turned Off in their assigned policy can't prevent participants from copying or forwarding of chat messages, live captions, and transcripts in meetings they organize.
To allow participants to copy or forward meeting chat content, use the following steps:
- In the Teams admin center, expand Meetings, and then select Meeting policies.
- Choose the policy that you want to update, or create a new one.
- In the Content sharing section, set Organizer can restrict participants from copying or forwarding meeting chat messages, live captions, and transcripts to Off
- Select Save.
Meetings with a sensitivity label that prevents copying chat content to the clipboard override the Teams admin policy.
Important
If a sensitivity label that restricts copying from the chat is specified as the default channel label in a container label, then teams with that container label will restrict copying from the chat for all channels in the team, both in and out of channel meetings.
Options for meetings without chat
Some organizations require that meeting chat be turned off entirely for certain types of meetings. For example, an organization that holds meetings where personal data is discussed might want to turn off the meeting chat because of the regulatory requirements around storing this information.
For meetings where sensitive or highly sensitive information is shared and you want to turn off the meeting chat, you can enforce this requirement by using a meeting template or sensitivity label.
In meetings where the chat isn't available, meeting organizers can turn on the Q&A feature. This allows attendees to ask questions or comment in writing. This feature is available but off by default for meeting organizers. Teams administrators can prevent meeting organizers from using it by turning off the Q&A admin meeting policy or disabling it in a meeting template.
By default, Teams also allows meeting attendees to create shared meeting notes, use annotation while sharing your screen and use the whiteboard. While the meeting organizer can't turn off these features, you can turn them off for people and groups by using meeting policies in the Teams admin center.