Microsoft Rolls Out Controversial Employee Tracking Feature That Tells Your Boss When You’re in Office

Simply connect to your workplace Wi-Fi or a desk peripheral, and Microsoft Teams’ new workplace check-in feature will update your location to the building, provided it has been configured by your admin.^[1]

Although Microsoft says it’s designed to make collaboration more seamless and help colleagues find out where their coworkers are currently working, privacy advocates have raised concerns about increasing workplace surveillance and employees' right to privacy and independence.

Microsoft had initially delayed the rollout of the feature due to strong criticism but ultimately released it in mid-June.

Here's everything you need to know about workplace check-in, how it works, and whether it's a privacy risk.

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How Teams workplace check-in works

According to Microsoft, there are two ways workplace check-in works: either based on desk peripherals or wireless networks.

Whenever an employee connects to the workplace Wi-Fi or plugs their device into a known desk peripheral, such as a docking station, USB hub, or monitor, Microsoft Teams can recognize the connection and update their status to "In Office."

If the Wi-Fi or peripheral has been configured to a specific building name, Teams will also display that on their profile banner. For instance, if an employee connects to the Wi-Fi in Studio B, their location will be updated to "Studio B" on their Teams profile.

Why Microsoft says its new feature is not a privacy nightmare

While many privacy-conscious users have called this yet another surveillance tool, Microsoft has stood firm on its stance that workplace check-in is not a tracking tool and cannot be used to monitor employee attendance.

"We do not support employee surveillance in any way. Employee privacy is at the core of how we innovate and build," Microsoft told Windows Latest.

• Workplace check-in is always off by default, and your organization admin must explicitly enable and configure it for it to work.
• Your location is updated only based on workplace Wi-Fi and desk peripherals. If you connect to your home Wi-Fi or are working after hours, your status will simply show as "Remote" without any location.
• Users still have the option to manually set or clear their work location.
• The feature does not generate any monitoring or reporting views, and no historical location data is stored. It only updates the location in real time.

For wireless-based location updates, the policy adds two modes: Inform and Ask.

1. In Inform mode, users will see an informational banner in Teams when workplace check-in is active for them, along with an option to opt out.
2. In Ask mode, users will see an informational banner that workplace check-in is available, and the feature will only be activated if the user chooses to opt in.

Privacy concerns around workplace check-in

Although Microsoft hasn’t built any privacy-invasive use cases into the product itself, there are no design roadblocks preventing an organization from tracking their employees if it wants to.

For instance, while Microsoft doesn’t offer a dashboard that provides detailed information on employees' working hours or office attendance, companies could easily build one using Microsoft Graph API exports. Clients may request such integrations that flag warnings when an employee's in-office time falls below a defined limit.

Organizations could use this information to deny remote work access or flag teams for not being visible enough. This can open the door for managers to use in-office frequency as an informal factor in remote work approvals.

Moreover, while workplace check-in does not store your location history, the data could still be cross-referenced with other telemetry, such as message volume, idle time, or call durations.

As a result, managers could paint a day-by-day or even minute-by-minute picture of how their employees spend their workdays. This could lead to micromanagement, which could prove counterproductive and become an invasion of employee privacy.

Location sharing at work isn't new

Microsoft isn't the only company giving employers this kind of access. Google rolled out a feature in 2021 that allowed users to update their working locations directly in Calendar.

Later, in 2023, it introduced the Calendar API, allowing managers to analyze users' working locations to better adapt on-site resources by studying the flow and volume of people through physical campuses.

Similarly, teams could share location data with internal systems or third parties to enable hot desk bookings or schedule remote or in-office working days.

While Google's stated use case is space planning rather than performance monitoring, it shows how location data collected for one purpose can be exposed through an API for broader organizational use. This is the same structural risk that applies to Teams' workplace check-in.

What can you do to protect yourself

While Microsoft has given users enough options to steer clear of its new workplace check-in feature, a lot depends on how your organization chooses to implement it.

If they deploy the feature as intended by Microsoft, giving you enough options to opt out, you can simply choose not to share your location when you see the prompt in your Teams app.

However, if your organization mandates through policy that all employees must opt into this feature, stripping it of its optional nature, there's little you can do about it then.

One relief, however, is that it won’t track your location at all times, as it works only within office locations. If you're working from anywhere other than your office, Teams will simply show your location as "Remote," without any further explanations or specifications.

Bottom line

Agreed, Microsoft has designed workplace check-in with privacy in mind, giving employees enough control. But it does give organizations the tools to track their employees if they want to.

And this optional backdoor to privacy invasion is exactly what's concerning, since it relies on human goodwill rather than the system being technically incapable of invading privacy.

While there's practically nothing to worry about if your organization uses the feature as intended, you could be left with little choice but to consent to location sharing if your company makes it mandatory.

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Author Details

Krishi Chowdhary

About the Author

Krishi Chowdhary specializes in digital privacy, cybersecurity, and consumer technology. He has written extensively on online privacy tools and broader cybersecurity topics, including online scams, data breaches, age verification, and emerging digital threats. Krishi believes technology reporting should empower readers, not confuse them, and is committed to making even the most technical subjects easy to understand without compromising on accuracy or depth. His work has appeared in leading technology publications, including CNET, ExpressVPN, and TechRadar, where he has covered topics ranging from cybersecurity incidents and privacy product announcements to artificial intelligence and major technology news