Microsoft Teams introduces compliance-driven Meeting Moderator policies that provide extensive security in collaboration across restricted groups

Microsoft is enhancing the compliance capabilities of its Teams platform with a new meeting feature designed to enable secure collaboration across restricted groups while maintaining strict regulatory oversight.

This innovative addition addresses the challenges of working across information barriers—also known as ethical walls—commonly used in industries such as finance and healthcare.

The new feature, announced in a recent entry to the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, ensures that meetings involving participants from restricted groups can only proceed under the supervision of a designated moderator. The compliance department appoints these moderators to oversee interactions and maintain adherence to regulations. If the last moderator leaves the meeting, it is automatically ended, preventing unsupervised communication that could potentially breach compliance guidelines.

Organizations often face stringent regulatory requirements demanding tight control over communication between groups. By enabling real-time compliance monitoring, Microsoft Teams wants to provide a secure environment for sensitive discussions, balancing collaboration and regulatory integrity.

Here’s what the entry says:

This new Microsoft Teams Meeting feature enables secure collaboration between users separated by information barriers (also known as ethical walls) under strict compliance oversight. With this capability, meetings involving participants from restricted groups can proceed only when a designated meeting moderator—assigned by the compliance department—is present. If the last moderator leaves the meeting, the meeting automatically ends. This ensures real-time compliance monitoring and maintains regulatory integrity during sensitive cross-barrier interactions.

The new policy will be added to Teams in May, and it will only be available to Premium customers.