Microsoft runs on trust. With the growing digital data in your organizations and sophistication of online threats, it’s increasingly important to have intelligent security and simplified governance tools to safeguard your corporate data.

 

At Microsoft, our goal is to provide a built-in, intelligent, unified, and extensible solution to protect sensitive data across your digital estate – in Microsoft 365 cloud services, on-premises, third-party SaaS applications, and more. With Microsoft Information Protection (MIP), we are building a unified set of capabilities for classification, labeling, and protection not only in Office apps, but also in Microsoft 365 productivity services like OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, and Exchange Online.

 

Sensitivity labels are central to how your business-critical data is protected using Microsoft Information Protection (MIP). You create a sensitivity label and associate protection policies like encryption and visual marking, then your end users simply label their important documents and emails. You can also be assured that the protection will persist with the file throughout its life cycle.

 

Today, we are excited to announce general availability of sensitivity labels with protection for Office files in SharePoint and OneDrive. This is one more step to providing you comprehensive protection across documents and emails in Microsoft 365 services.

 

Now your users can apply sensitivity labels, with protection policies, not just in Office apps on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android but also in Office on the web. Users will see sensitivity as an option on the ribbon of the Office on the web, and as the applied label name on the status bar.

 

Figure 1. Manual classification using sensitivity labels shown in PowerPoint web app when used in a browser

 

In addition, for files labeled and protected with encryption and stored in SharePoint and OneDrive, the following capabilities will empower your end users:

• Coauthoring using Office web apps
• Searching for content within these documents
• Protection using encryption will persist even after the file is downloaded

 

For security and compliance administrators, Office 365 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) and eDiscovery will also work. Office 365 eDiscovery now supports full-text search for these label encrypted files. Office 365 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies cover content in these label encrypted files.

 

Getting Started

 

 

Figure 2. The compliance center has new option to turn on this feature

 

As a Microsoft 365 customer, you can turn on this feature in the Microsoft 365 compliance center as shown above. To learn more about this feature, please read our feature documentation.

 

Let us know what you think, we are always open to feedback via UserVoice and continued dialog in the Security & Compliance community and SharePoint community in the Microsoft Tech Community.

 

If you are new to Microsoft 365, learn how to try or buy a Microsoft 365 subscription.

 

Lastly, as you navigate this challenging time, we have additional resources to help. For more information about securing your organization in this time of crisis, visit our Remote Work site. We’re here to help in any way we can.

 

FAQs

 

1. What is the license requirement for using this feature?

Refer to the Information Protection section in Microsoft 365 security & compliance licensing guidance.

 

2. I use AIP/RMS today, how can I take advantage of this new feature in SharePoint and OneDrive services?

Migrate to unified labeling solution using instructions here, then you can advantage of this feature. Learn more in our feature documentation.

 

3. Is this feature supported in Files tab experience in Teams?

Yes, it is. Learn more in our feature documentation.

 

Thank you!

 

Sesha Mani, Principal Group Product Manager, Microsoft