Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Intended Audience: Faculty, Staff, Students and Retirees in the OSU and A&M systems.
Table of Contents
Questions & Answers
Is Microsoft Teams always listening or activated by voice commands?
MS Teams is not self-listening and does not self-activate to listen or record anything.
Does Microsoft Teams pick up audio and video from the microphone and camera when the application is open but not using the chat or video features?
The audio clips could only be used if the settings were enabled. OSU has not enabled these features. However, if an unscheduled meeting is initiated from within a chat, the camera will self-activate. You may then turn off the video camera and capture if not desired or needed.
What access does OSU have to save or view the data produced, or shared and saved in Teams?
MS Teams is discoverable under Discovery searches. Here is a document covering the different searchable components. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/ediscovery-investigation
What choices does OSU make for users regarding personal settings such as advertising, in individual Microsoft Office.com accounts?
OSU does not allow advertising in our tenant. All profile information other than the users photograph is controlled through the users O-Key account settings.
Is there and Oklahoma A&M System 'Terms of Use' agreement between users and Microsoft?
The Terms and Conditions are for OSU. Purchasing and Legal Counsel signed off on those for the University. We do not have individual terms and conditions for each user. Reference to ‘Terms of Use’ or ‘Terms of Service’ in Office365 applications would be for specific terms and conditions which OSU could set and require users to accept. OSU does not have any of those terms or conditions.
Is Microsoft Teams data subject to law enforcement of FOIA requests?
The MS Teams data would fall under the same request criteria as email.
What is the retention policy for departmental Teams or individual group data in MS Teams?
- Current data policy is to apply Legal Holds for email accounts belonging to Faculty and Staff.
- MS Teams Chats along with deleted Outlook email, are retained for 3 years. They are then permanently deleted provided there is no legal hold in place.
- Recorded Meetings and Audio/Video Calls are retained for 1828 days or 5 years and 1 day.
- All other data is discoverable during eDiscovery searches and retained indefinitely.