Microsoft Groups can quickly snitch in your location utilizing Wi-Fi connections

For higher or worse, Microsoft Groups is among the most necessary communication apps within the skilled world. It’s utilized by hundreds of thousands for chat messages, video conferences, and sending recordsdata. Now, in accordance with the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, Groups is getting a brand new function in February 2026 that few persons are going to love—and it’s dangerous sufficient that it’ll doubtless increase issues amongst knowledge protectionists.

The brand new function is described as follows:

“When customers connect with their group’s Wi-Fi, Groups will quickly be capable to routinely replace their work location to mirror the constructing they’re working from. This function will probably be off by default. Tenant admins will resolve whether or not to allow it and require end-users to opt-in.”

Although which may sound fairly tame on paper, there are some unsettling implications that might come up from this function. In brief, everybody within the Groups group will all the time know the place their colleagues are in real-time as they transfer round from Wi-Fi entry level to Wi-Fi entry level. This can make it simpler to drop in on a colleague unannounced or shortly prepare a bodily assembly. Furthermore, it additionally means you received’t be capable to retreat to a far nook of the workplace in hopes of remaining undetected so you possibly can work in peace and quiet.

Above all, nonetheless, this new automated location-setting function could possibly be utilized by employers to extra intently monitor their workers. Is Worker A adhering to hybrid work tips like “two days at house and three days within the workplace”? Is Worker B consistently working from house and skipping out on in-office days? Taken to the intense, it might even be used to notice when Worker C arrives on web site to find out tardiness.

The brand new function is presently marked as “in growth” with a world rollout deliberate for February 2026 throughout Home windows and macOS methods. In response to the unique plan, Microsoft needed to launch this function as early as December 2025, however will now clearly miss that deadline.