Microsoft Teams Poses Legal and Compliance Challenges for Legal Ops

With the number of Microsoft Teams collaboration platform users sitting at 270 million as of 2022, the prevalence of Teams’ data in legal matters is a major concern for Legal Ops professionals, as reported in a blog post by PageFreezer. 

Regulators are also concerned about messaging apps and collaboration platforms. The Securities and Exchange Commission levied major fines at the end of 2021, and the Department of Justice has made it clear that systems and processes must be put in place to ensure compliance.

Here are steps that companies should take to make sure that the use of Microsoft Teams aligns with legal and compliance requirements:

1.  As Microsoft Teams data can be spread across multiple locations, organizations need to have a clear understanding of the data landscape to easily locate and preserve data in response to legal or compliance requests.

2.  Formal regulatory policies should be established, including a communication policy that outlines acceptable behavior and a security policy that outlines data monitoring and protection measures. 

3.  One of the most effective ways to combat improper use of a team collaboration tool is to provide mandatory training for employees and incorporate it as a regular part of onboarding. 

4. To maintain control over the creation of private or public channels, it’s critical to limit users’ permissions and restrict channel creation to designated personnel.

5.  Intelligent monitoring and data loss prevention tools allow businesses to safeguard against data loss without employees feeling their privacy is being invaded. 

6.  To ensure legal compliance and proper evidence collection, organizations must preserve all relevant data, including edited and deleted content, in a format that is admissible by law. 

7.  It is imperative to align the retention periods for conversations and channels with the organization’s overall retention policies.