EAC Mobile Device Mailbox Policy Semantics

Question

I'm trying to understand something about the Mobile device mailbox policies in EAC in Exchange online. When I look at the list of policies it shows that for my default policy, in the Mobile device encryption column, "Device encryption required", which is good, that is what I want.

When I open up the details of the policy and go to the Security tab, there is an item in that list, which is checked, that says "Request encryption on device". Why does it say request and not require? If it's just a request, can it be ignored, or if a device is not capable of encryption can it still connect?

Answer 1

Seems they changed the wording a bit, it was "Require device encryption" in the classic EAC. In any case, it's an "opportunistic" setting, as not all devices are capable of encryption. Whether the device will be allowed to connect, depends on the value you set for the "Allow mobile devices that don't fully support these policies to sync" setting you configure under the General tab.

Answer 2

Answer 3