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Microsoft Teams (Chat)

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Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Microsoft Corporation · www.microsoft.com

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Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The Security Officer

Weighted verdict

Assumes the archive will one day be read by someone it was not meant for. Wants end-to-end encryption that ordinary users survive, device verification, sessions an admin can revoke, and a plain statement of what the vendor cannot decrypt.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The Security Officer

Channels, threads & search

How this is scored

The daily surface: channel model, threading, mentions, files, and whether search can find a decision made eighteen months ago.

0 — Flat group chats with no threads; search covers recent messages only, and history is capped.

3 — Channels and direct messages with basic search, but threading is awkward or absent and file handling is a plain attachment list.

5 — Public and private channels, real threads, mentions and reactions, file sharing with previews, and full-text search across the whole history.

8 — Cross-organisation or guest channels with clear boundaries, message editing history, pinned and saved items, search with filters by channel, person and date, and a documented history limit or none at all.

10 — The archive is a working knowledge base: search that ranks well across years, threads that stay readable, channel lifecycle management (archive, rename, merge) without losing history, and export of a conversation in a form a human can read.

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The Security Officer

The captured pages confirm chat and channels as a solution area, plus file sharing through SharePoint and per-user cloud storage of 1 TB or 10 GB depending on plan. We found no public information in the captures on threading, mentions, full-text search across history, message editing history, or channel lifecycle, so I cannot place the daily surface above the basic channel-and-attachments level. 2 1

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Encryption & access control

How this is scored

What is encrypted and against whom, plus who can reach which room. Judged on documented mechanism, since "encrypted" in this category usually means the vendor holds the keys.

0 — Transport encryption only, undocumented; no role model beyond admin, guests indistinguishable from members.

3 — TLS and encryption at rest with vendor-held keys, basic roles, and guest access that mostly works.

5 — The above plus configurable roles per channel, SSO, guest accounts with scoped visibility, and a clear statement of what the vendor can read.

8 — Optional end-to-end encryption for direct messages or private rooms with the trade-offs named, device verification, session management an admin can revoke, and documented key handling.

10 — End-to-end encryption as a first-class mode — documented or open cryptography, cross-device key management that ordinary users survive, identity verification, and the vendor stating plainly what it cannot decrypt.

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The Security Officer

Encryption of meetings, chats, calls and files appears only as a feature bullet on a plan comparison page, with no documented mechanism, no statement of who holds the keys, and no end-to-end mode, device verification, or admin-revocable sessions anywhere in the captured pages. The privacy statement says user data may be used to develop and train Microsoft's AI models, which is the opposite of a plain statement of what the vendor cannot read, though it also notes customer agreements for enterprise and developer products take precedence over the statement. 2 3

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Retention, discovery & co-determination

How this is scored

The archive as a legal object: retention policies, export for discovery, audit, and the monitoring features a works council will ask to have switched off.

0 — No retention policy, no export beyond a manual copy, no audit log, and presence or activity analytics that cannot be disabled.

3 — Manual export of some data and a global history limit, but no per-channel retention, no audit log and no admin control over analytics.

5 — Configurable retention per channel or workspace, admin export in a documented format, an audit log of administrative actions, and status or presence that a user can control.

8 — Legal-hold and eDiscovery export including edits and deletions, retention executed per policy and evidenced, full admin audit trail, and activity analytics switchable off organisation-wide.

10 — Built to pass a works agreement and a subpoena on the same day: granular retention with documented deletion, discovery export a lawyer can use, complete audit, and no individual-level productivity scoring anywhere in the product.

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The Security Officer

Compliance and data protection are routed to the Microsoft Purview suite, which requires a Microsoft 365 E3 licence, and the captured pages document none of its mechanisms — no per-channel retention, no discovery export format, no audit trail, and no organisation-wide switch for presence or activity analytics. The only retention-adjacent statements are that all associated data is deleted on subscription cancellation and that time, date and participants of communications are collected as metadata. 2 3

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Deployment & data custody

How this is scored

Whether the customer can hold their own archive: self-hosting, private cloud, open source, federation, and what an exit actually looks like.

0 — Cloud-only, proprietary, with export limited to a partial archive.

3 — Cloud-only, but with a documented full export in an open-ish format.

5 — A private-cloud or dedicated-instance option, or a self-hosted edition that lags the cloud significantly; full export documented.

8 — A genuine self-hosted edition close to feature parity, or open-source core with a documented upgrade path, plus complete export including files and metadata.

10 — Custody is the customer's: open-source or source-available server, self-hosting supported as a first-class deployment, open protocol or federation, and a migration path in and out that the vendor documents rather than resists.

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The Security Officer

Everything captured describes cloud subscription plans; we found no public information on a self-hosted edition, an open-source or source-available server, federation, or a documented export of the workspace archive including files and metadata. Custody is further concentrated by the statement that personal data may be stored and processed in the United States and in any jurisdiction where Microsoft or its service providers operate. 2 3

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Integrations & extensibility

How this is scored

Bots, webhooks, app framework, identity — whether the chat becomes the place work is noticed, and whether that is buildable without a partner agreement.

0 — No API, no webhooks, no bots.

3 — Incoming webhooks and a handful of native integrations; no bot framework, no documented limits.

5 — Documented REST API, incoming and outgoing webhooks, slash commands, a bot account model, and SSO.

8 — A proper app framework with interactive components, event subscriptions with retries, SCIM provisioning, documented rate limits and a sandbox.

10 — A platform: versioned API with a deprecation policy, an app directory or plugin system with permissions a customer can audit, and integrations the vendor maintains rather than lists.

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The Security Officer

Over 250 integrated business apps and the ability to build custom chatbots with Copilot Studio are shown, with a free version of Microsoft Entra ID in all three plans for identity. We found no public information in the captures on a documented REST API, incoming or outgoing webhooks, slash commands, event subscriptions with retries, SCIM provisioning, rate limits, or a sandbox, which keeps this below a documented developer platform. 2 1

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Where the archive and its metadata live, who the contracting entity is, which subprocessors touch it. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; scored here as this buyer weighs it.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated or non-EU, subprocessors unnamed.

3 — EU data residency offered for message content while metadata, search indexes or support tooling remain non-EU, or the contracting entity sits outside the EU.

5 — EU hosting as standard and an EU contracting entity, but parts of the chain — notifications, AI features, analytics — are non-EU without an explained safeguard.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, full subprocessor list published, any non-EU processing named with its legal basis.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: vendor, entity, hosting and every subprocessor European, certification published, and a self-hosted option that removes the question.

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The Security Officer

Microsoft is a United States vendor, and the privacy statement says personal data may be stored and processed in the user's region, in the United States and in any jurisdiction where Microsoft, its affiliates, subsidiaries or service providers operate. We found no public information on EU data residency, an EU contracting entity, or a published subprocessor list; the only cross-border safeguards named are the EU-US, UK-extension and Swiss-US data privacy frameworks. 3

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Pricing transparency

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the annual invoice for their headcount — including the retention, compliance and guest features they actually need — from public pages alone.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A per-user headline exists, but the tier where retention control, SSO or compliance export begins is unstated.

5 — Per-user prices public with billing period stated, but at least one commonly needed capability (unlimited history, SSO, eDiscovery) sits in an unpriced enterprise tier.

8 — Every tier priced publicly with per-user maths, history and storage limits, feature boundaries, minimum term and VAT treatment stated; self-hosted licensing priced too where offered.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given headcount and deployment choice, including guest users, storage and any per-instance licence.

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The Security Officer

Add-on prices are public and exact — Teams Premium at 8,70 € per user per month and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business at 18,20 € per user per month, annual billing with automatic renewal, prices excluding VAT — with storage limits, a 7-day pro-rated refund right and trial auto-conversion all stated. But we found no public information on per-user prices for the base plans, and the compliance and data-protection capabilities sit in the Microsoft Purview suite requiring Microsoft 365 E3, whose price we found no public information on, so the invoice for a compliance-minded buyer is not computable from these pages. 2

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (13)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Product page www.microsoft.com Checked 16 Sep 2026 +2 earlier captures: 11 Sep 2026, 31 Aug 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing www.microsoft.com Checked 16 Sep 2026 +2 earlier captures: 15 Sep 2026, 31 Aug 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy statement privacy.microsoft.com Checked 16 Sep 2026 +1 earlier capture: 31 Aug 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Security / trust page www.microsoft.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Terms of service — found from the homepage www.microsoft.com Checked 30 Sep 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap www.microsoft.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 Channels, threads & search — found from sitemap www.microsoft.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap www.microsoft.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  9. 9 Encryption & access control — found from sitemap www.microsoft.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  10. 10 Retention, discovery & co-determination — found from sitemap www.microsoft.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  11. 11 Deployment & data custody — found from sitemap www.microsoft.com Checked 1 Oct 2026 Details →
  12. 12 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap developer.microsoft.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →
  13. 13 Integrations & extensibility — found from sitemap developer.microsoft.com Checked 5 Oct 2026 Details →