Collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Webex Teams, RingCentral and Slack have become integral to how we work.  With multiple ways to communicate and collaborate they’re vital for keeping workforces and customers connected whether remote, hybrid or office based.  And with less and less physical in-person interaction, users are making use of the rich features to liaise and share information.  Not least by adding personality and emotion with emojis, reactions and GIFs.  But modern communications create compliance challenges when it comes to providing evidence and proof that is so often required for regulatory, HR, litigation or complaints resolution issues.

It’s a straightforward question.  With a complex answer.

Financial services firms have long used technology to supervise the communications and activities of employees, to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements and be able to detect issues such as market abuse, mis-selling or data privacy. It’s a key control for meeting regulatory obligations including MiFID II,  CFTC, FINRA, IIROC and GDPR and a standard feature of working in a regulated industry. Likewise data loss prevention tools are commonplace across businesses to reduce the risks of data loss and exposure.  All designed to protect consumers, employees, and shareholders.  

The rapidly increasing use of chat in modern work-from-anywhere workplaces has exposed new compliance, privacy, and security risks. Not least the need to comply with regulatory obligations for retention, supervision, privacy and security mandated by regulators worldwide.

Billions of dollars in fines and rising

Nearly half a billion dollars in fines announced by the European Commission for trading cartels involving ten global banks is a stark reminder of the challenges firms face in monitoring chat and instant messages to detect misconduct. Communications in chat rooms enabled the sharing of commercially sensitive information to go undetected for several years.

Archiving and Data Protection 

An independent survey by Osterman Research, and sponsored by Theta Lake, sought the views of 142 IT decision-makers in mid to large organizations using Microsoft Teams. Participants were asked in-depth questions about their organization’s capabilities and challenges in relation to archiving and protecting the many data types produced within the platform.

Nineteen video meetings in one day is Zoom CEO Eric S. Yuan’s personal record.   It’s a new way of working that many can relate to, and similarly struggle to get through.  The notion that extensive on-screen calls cause feelings of fatigue is supported by Microsoft’s own research.   But it’s not just the ‘constraints of video conferencing technology, when combined with increased cadence in meetings’ that’s causing fatigue, it’s the fact that video calls also require more engagement and concentration.  The absence of the non-verbal cues we’d normally rely on in person, the need for sustained attention through meetings and a lack of variety in what’s shown on screen are all contributors.