A note-taking bot is a service that can record virtual meetings and provide summaries in the form of text transcripts and screenshots. When a user signs up to these services, any meeting invitations that they receive will be forwarded to a note-taking bot. The bot will then appear as a separate member in the meetings that they join.
We recommend that all University members prevent AI note-taking bots' access to Teams meetings. This will protect the security of your meetings and any confidential information you may discuss or show on screen.
If you have a Microsoft Copilot or Teams Premium licence, it is fine to use it to take notes of your meeting. Information stays within the University's Microsoft tenancy when you use these services.
Restricting access to Teams meetings
If you are the meeting organiser:
- In your Teams or Outlook calendar, select the meeting.
- Select "Meeting options". This option appears at the top of the meeting details window in Teams or in the footer of the meeting details in Outlook. This will open the meeting options window in a browser.
- Under "Meeting access", make sure that "Who can bypass the lobby?" is set to:
- "People in my org" if you would like any University member to join the meeting without being held in the lobby for admission
- "Only organizers and co-organizers" if you would like to manually admit all attendees from the lobby.
- Make sure "People dialling in can bypass the lobby" is switched off.
- Check the "Who can present" settings under "Roles". If it is set to "Everyone", you will need to make sure that "Who can admit from the lobby" under "Meeting access" is set to "Organizers and co-organizers". If you do not do this, the person who uses the AI note-taking bot will be able to admit the bot from the lobby.
- Select "Save" at the bottom of the screen.
If you are not the meeting organiser, contact them and ask them to follow the above steps.
During meetings
You should not admit people from the lobby if you don't know who they are or if the profile looks as if it may be a note taking bot. If there is an attendee in the meeting that you think is a note taking bot, you should make enquiries with the meeting organiser to ensure that any bots are removed. This is because information sourced from the meeting may not be confidentially stored or used by the bot.
Making alternative arrangements
If you would like your meetings to have the recommended settings by default, and be further protected from AI bots joining, please contact the Service Desk. We can set up your account so that anonymous participants will need to complete a CAPTCHA to join meetings that you organise, and all meetings that you organise will have the following settings as default:
Anonymous users can join a meeting unverified: Off
Who can admit from the lobby: Organizers and co-organizers
Require a verification check from: Anonymous users and people from untrusted organizations.
Getting help and support
If you need support, contact the Service Desk.