External Attendee Experience for Teams Meetings

Instructions for Joining a MORPC Teams Meeting

(As an external partner or member of the public)

As part of our ongoing commitment to safeguarding our digital environment, IT will be implementing a new security policy in Microsoft Teams to address the growing concern around unauthorized AI bots joining meetings.

These bots - often from third-party services - pose several risks, including:

• Unauthorized Access & Data Exposure: Bots may gain access to sensitive discussions, risking exposure of confidential information and PII.
• Recording & Transcription Without Consent: Some bots automatically record or transcribe meetings without notifying participants, which can lead to legal and compliance issues. In some cases, these bots also send unverified meeting summaries to all attendees, potentially creating inaccurate or misleading records that appear official.
• Disruption & Security Vulnerabilities: Bots can interfere with the natural flow of meetings - for example, by keeping the meeting active even after it has ended. Additionally, because they often bypass standard security protocols, they can introduce new vulnerabilities into our systems.

When attending a MORPC-hosted Teams meeting, external attendees will receive the below prompts before they can join the meeting: 

Step 1: External attendees will go to join the Teams meeting from the original invitation as normal. 

Step 2: External attendees will be asked to enter their name to identify themselves in the meeting: 

Step 3: External attendees will then be asked to confirm CAPTCHA to ensure a live person is joining the meeting: 

Step 4: No additional steps required! After confirming CAPTCHA, external attendees will be added to the meeting as normal.