In October 2021, Microsoft came out with a public preview of end-to-end encryption for Microsoft Teams calls in person-to-person scenarios. The company then revealed that the calls made inside Teams are already encrypted using Microsoft 365 encryption technologies. That end-to-end encryption will take the privacy setting a step further by preventing a “man-in-the-middle” interception scenario.
Furthermore, Microsoft had also announced that it would bring the end-to-end encryption feature to Teams in November 2021. However, very recently, the company announced that there have been a few delays and that it might take them longer than their original designated time for this feature to be launched. This feature had made its first debut in the Teams public preview in June 2021.
Microsoft’s definition of end-to-end encryption for Teams is as follows, “End-to-end encryption, or E2EE, is the encryption of information at its origin and decryption at its intended destination without the ability for intermediate nodes or parties to decrypt.” This means that the E2EE function supports the users in one-to-one voice calls so that no content can be stolen by a third party. The data is encrypted and decrypted locally.
The preview of the feature showed that Team users could verify if E2EE is turned on by looking for a lock plus shield icon on the top left side of a screen. In an end-to-end encryption call, participants will also get a display showing a 20-digit number. Moreover, since users of enterprises and organizations mostly use Teams, the admin can control which members can use the encryption function.
Microsoft announced that the end-to-end encryption function for Teams voice calls will be launched in December. It should be noted that this feature is only available for Teams clients, and users cannot access the feature in the web version of Microsoft Teams.
