Microsoft has launched Privacy Management for Microsoft 365, a new tool designed to enable customers to protect their personal data and build a privacy-resilient workplace.
In multiple blogs, the company cited the fluidity of hybrid work and the merging of work and personal activities, which is leading to more personal data being generated, creating additional cyber risk.
Because of those concerns, Microsoft has released Privacy Management for Microsoft 365, a tool that allows organizations to identify critical privacy risks and conflicts, automate privacy operations and respond to subject rights requests and empower employees to make smart data handling decisions, according to the company.
“With role-based access controls and data de-identified by default, Privacy Management for Microsoft 365 helps organizations to have end-to-end visibility of privacy risks at scale in an automated way,” wrote Vasu Jakkal, Microsoft’ corporate vice president of security, compliance and identity.
The tool automatically and continuously discovers personal data in customers’ Microsoft 365 environments by leveraging data classification and user mapping intelligence, enabling organizations to see an aggregated view of their privacy posture. Privacy admins can also see the current status and trends of the associated privacy risks arising from personal data being overshared, transferred or unused, according to Microsoft.
To help organizations mitigate privacy risks before they become a problem, Privacy Management correlates data signals across the Microsoft 365 suite to deliver actionable insights that allow privacy admins to automate privacy policies via an out-of-box template. This helps organizations keep tabs on data transfers, data minimization, data overexposure and subject-rights request management.
The tool also provides insights and contexts to admins to help them automate privacy policies and protect sensitive data. Data owners are also given recommended actions, training and tips to make smart data-handling decisions, eliminating the need to choose between privacy and productivity, Jakkal wrote.
The tool comes with APIs that allow organizations to integrate with existing solutions to automatically create and manage subject rights requests in privacy management.
Microsoft is also partnering with privacy software companies like OneTrust, Securiti.ai and WireWheel to extend capabilities to personal data stored outside of the Microsoft 365 environment.
Microsoft also announced new regulation assessments in Microsoft Compliance Manager.
Check out Jakkal’s blog for more information, or this Tech Community blog for more technical details.
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