Microsoft has seemingly updated a controversial feature to its Teams collaboration and messaging service, but won’t say what was updated or why.
Late last month, reports surfaced that Microsoft Teams would add a new feature in December of this year, which would pinpoint the location of any employee using the company’s Wi-Fi. For example, if your Chicago-based manager has the expectation that you work in the New York office four days a week, but you only make it to the office two days a week, your boss will soon know.
Here’s a description of the feature, numbered 488800, as it read on Microsoft’s 365 Roadmap website back in October:
“When users connect to their organization’s Wi-Fi, Teams will automatically set their work location to reflect the building they are working in.”
What the Teams location tracking could do
And how it works
Determining an employee’s location is a complex issue in the post-COVID-19 lockdown era, even if companies have solidified their policies regarding office attendance. Most experts seem to agree on one thing: Neither the RTO (return-to-office) nor the WFH (work-from-home) side will totally win.
After years of working from home, many in the workforce — including veteran managers and early-career staffers — question why being in the office is still vital for performing a job that has itself changed as a result of being performed remotely for a half-decade. Why go into the office if you’ve built the ultimate work-from-home setup, you might wonder.
Many companies require employees to use a corporate VPN to tunnel into the company’s own internet network, for reasons of security and stability. Once connected to the company’s Wi-Fi via a VPN (virtual private network), managers or system administrators can determine that the employee is not in any of the company’s buildings that have Wi-Fi, thus putting them “out of bounds” from company property and in violation of any in-office policies.
Why people are upset about it
And what they’re saying
The barrage of news articles and social media comments about the impending change was nothing short of scorched Earth.
- “Just in time for the holidays,” observed Forbes in a story about it.
- “Microsoft Teams is about to become a lapdog for your boss — automatically snitching on your live location when connected to the office Wi-Fi,” predicted Windows Central.
- “Microsoft Teams might just be the new office snitch,” Mashable flatly put it.
(“The new office snitch!” If we’ve learned anything so far, it is do not mess with Mashable.)
However, the Cyber Press did offer this important caveat in its story, published the same week as the others:
“The feature is disabled by default, requiring IT administrators to activate it at the tenant level and end-users to opt in via a consent prompt in the app.”
Beyond traditional media, the news sparked hundreds of comments across various social media platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Reddit.
What Microsoft did
And what they didn’t tell us
About a week ago, on November 5, Microsoft modified the item about the controversial update. For one, the update has been pushed back to January 2026 — so, after the holiday season — and Microsoft has also made it clear that the location-tracking feature will be turned off by default.
Here’s the description now (see screenshot below):
“When users connect to their organization’s Wi-Fi, Teams will soon be able to automatically update their work location to reflect the building they’re working from. This feature will be off by default. Tenant admins will decide whether to enable it and require end-users to opt-in.”
When MakeUseOf asked Microsoft about the reasons for modifying the post, a representative for the company responded only with this: “Thank you for reaching out. The M365 Roadmap reflects the latest information; otherwise, Microsoft has nothing to share.”
While Microsoft isn’t commenting, the updated and more detailed description — including the addition of the line “this feature will be off by default” and the clarification that administrators will decide whether to turn it on — may be the result of the uproar over the idea.
What’s next
Make no mistake, Microsoft is still rolling out this location-tracking feature for Teams in January 2026, even if the company hasn’t disclosed why it adjusted its feature description.
If you’re an office manager who wants to see your employees in the building, and your company uses Teams, your RTO reckoning appears to be on the horizon.