Microsoft Teams will start snitching to your boss when you’re not in the office — and this update is coming in December

https://www.tomsguide.com/ ^ | 10/24/2025 | Jason England

[mikesmad]

WIFI only? I don’t join any wireless network while in the office just a wired connection. And not sure how Teams knows my building based off of what SSID I join as in our case I could be on our guest network that is isolated from our internal vlan’s and know where in my network design do I have locations defined on the various SSID’s across our 120 locations. In other words this may be a feature IT could help configure but it most likely will not work by default unless somewhere someone sets up the parameters.

[Tell It Right]

Agreed. There are already tons of ways to tell if you’re in the office, or logged into the office network, or how much work you’re doing. The new Teams feature is a nothing burger.

And this is in some ways related to the arguments about H1B’s. We should have a two pronged battle against H1B’s: one is the political battle to limit H1B visas. The other is the cultural battle by us Americans being the best workers to the point that employers want us. The 4th Great Awakening should not only bring us closer to God, it should also improve our morals, including our work ethic.

[Psalm 73]

Still better than going in to the office every day.

I only miss the free coffee.

[ShadowAce]

I WFH full-time, connected to the office via a hardware VPN.

So my "location" will always be somewhere inside the datacenter.

[GingisK]

Years ago I made a device for a doctor that would move a mouse every few minutes so that he could stay logged into patient records long enough to think or interact with a patient. Maybe I should put them into production.

[Dacula]

During COVID, I bought a USB device that always kept me active in Teams. I haven’t had to use it in a few years, but it’s sure handy.

[GingisK]

Medical computers are locked down tighter than a tick. The mouse wiggler was our only way “in”. The USB thing was a nice touch.

[T.B. Yoits]

I WFH full-time, connected to the office via a hardware VPN. So my "location" will always be somewhere inside the datacenter.

Yeah, remotely connecting to a computer that's logged into Microsoft Teams will show your location as wherever that computer is.

In addition, some people use Microsoft Teams on their phones. Their location will change by cell tower.

[T.B. Yoits]

And this is in some ways related to the arguments about H1B’s.

They're long overdue to track foreigners' access to U.S. systems.

Pentagon Halts Chinese Coders Affecting DOD Cloud Systems
Aug. 28, 2025 | By Matthew Olay, DOD News

https://www.war.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/4288992/pentagon-halts-chinese-coders-affecting-dod-cloud-systems/

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon has halted a decade-old Microsoft program that has allowed Chinese coders, remotely supervised by U.S. contractors, to work on sensitive DOD cloud systems... Additionally, Hegseth said DOD has issued a formal letter of concern to Microsoft, documenting a breach of trust, and that DOD is requiring a third-party audit of the digital escorts program to pore over the code and submissions made by Chinese nationals.

[dayglored]

> I WFH full-time, connected to the office via a hardware VPN. So my "location" will always be somewhere inside the datacenter.

Same here, although it's a software VPN client in my case.

Somehow I don't think MS has thought this all the way through.

[okkev68]

My company can already do this now, but they don’t care. More people working from home has allowed them to reduce our owned and leased buildings globally and save a bunch of money. Most of us go in once or twice a week max, unless visitors are in.

[mikesmad]

Exactly. I know when my employees are working or not and where they are generally although scattered over North America.

[bgill]

Have an office cat. The second I leave, the cat is on the computer pulling up who knows what.

[martin_fierro]

(and also of no Windoze boxes) < |:)~

[ro_dreaming]

I have a ‘mouse mover’ at home. However, I plug that into my personal laptop USB, so it doesn’t ever get recognized by the work laptop.

[Vaduz]

No pay phoes cell phones that track cameras every place your new car blabs where your at GPS .........................

Fell free now?.

[EVO X]

Exactly. I know when my employees are working or not and where they are generally although scattered over North America.

I've been retired for a few years now, so I've lost track of some of the more recent DOL regulations about salaried workers. In general, salaried workers are hired for their knowledge and shouldn't be tracked on an hourly basis. Obviously if they don't show up for important meetings or miss deadlines, that doesn't count.

[mikesmad]

My guys are all salaried and if I tracked them hourly then they would have a good case to ask me to pay them more. They all work over 50 hours a week some much more.

[ptsal]

Another feature....