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Microsoft Purview Information Barriers (IBs) are policies that an admin can configure to prevent individuals or groups from communicating with each other. IBs are useful if, for example, one department is handling information that shouldn't be shared with other departments. IBs are also useful when a group needs to be isolated or prevented from communicating with anyone outside of that group. Shared channels in Microsoft Teams is supported by information barriers. Depending on the type of sharing, information barriers policies may restrict sharing in certain ways. For more information about shared channels and information barriers behavior, see Information barriers and shared channels.
For Microsoft Teams, information barriers can determine and prevent the following kinds of unauthorized collaborations:
Note
The primary driver for IBs comes from the financial services industry. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) reviews IBs and conflicts of interest within member firms and provides guidance about managing such conflicts (FINRA 2241, Debt Research Regulatory Notice 15-31.
However, since introducing IBs, many other areas have found them to be useful. Other common scenarios include:
For example, Enrico belongs to the Banking segment and Pradeep belongs to the Financial advisor segment. Enrico and Pradeep can't communicate with each other because the organization's IB policy blocks communication and collaboration between these two segments. However, Enrico and Pradeep can communicate with Lee in HR.
You might want to use IBs in situations like these:
The Information Barrier Policy Evaluation Service determines whether a communication complies with IB policies.
IB segments are managed in the Microsoft Purview portal, the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, or by using PowerShell cmdlets. For more information, see Step 2: Segment users in your organization.
Important
Support for assigning users to multiple segments is only available when your organization isn't in Legacy mode. To determine if your organization is in Legacy mode, see Check the IB mode for your organization).
Users are restricted to being assigned to only one segment for organizations in Legacy mode. Organizations in Legacy mode will be eligible to upgrade to the newest version of information barriers in the future. For more information, see the information barriers roadmap.
IB policies are managed in the Microsoft Purview portal, the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, or by using PowerShell cmdlets. For more information, see Step 3: Create IB policies.
Important
Before you set up or define policies, you must enable scoped directory search in Microsoft Teams. Wait at least a few hours after enabling scoped directory search before you set up or define policies for information barriers. For more information, see Define information barrier policies.
The IB Compliance Management role is responsible for managing IB policies. For more information about this role, see:
IB policies are activated when the following Teams events take place:
Members are added to a team: Whenever you add a user to a team, the user's policy must be evaluated against the IB policies of other team members. After the user is successfully added, the user can perform all functions in the team without further checks. If the user's policy blocks them from being added to the team, the user won't show up in search.
A new chat is requested: Each time that a user requests a new chat with one or more other users, the chat is evaluated to make sure that it isn't violating any IB policies. If the conversation violates an IB policy, then the conversation isn't started.
Here's an example of a 1:1 chat.
Here's an example of a group chat.
A user is invited to join a meeting: When a user is invited to join a meeting, the IB policy that applies to the user is evaluated against the IB policies that apply to the other team members. If there's a violation, the user won't be allowed to join the meeting.
A screen is shared between two or more users: When a user shares a screen with other users, the sharing must be evaluated to make sure that it doesn't violate the IB policies of other users. If an IB policy is violated, the screen share won't be allowed.
Here's an example of screen share before the policy is applied.
Here's an example of screen share after the policy is applied. The screen share and call icons aren't visible.
A user places a phone call in Teams: Whenever a user initiates a voice call (via VOIP) to another user or group of users, the call is evaluated to make sure that it doesn't violate the IB policies of other team members. If there's any violation, the voice call is blocked.
Guests in Teams: IB policies apply to guests in Teams, too. If guests need to be discoverable in your organization's global address list, see Manage guest access in Microsoft 365 Groups. Once guests are discoverable, you can define IB policies.
When the IB policy administrator makes changes to a policy, or when a policy change is activated because of a change to a user's profile (such as for a job change), the Information Barrier Policy Evaluation Service automatically searches the members to ensure that their membership in the team doesn't violate any policies.
If there's an existing chat or other communication between users, and a new policy is set or an existing policy is changed, the service evaluates existing communications to make sure that the communications are still allowed to occur.
1:1 chat: If communication between two users is no longer allowed (because of application to one or both users of a policy that blocks communication), further communication is blocked. Their existing chat conversations become read-only.
Here's an example that shows the chat is visible.
Here's an example that shows the chat is disabled.
Group chat: If communication from one user to a group is no longer allowed (for example, because a user changed jobs), the user—along with the other users whose participation violates the policy—may be removed from group chat, and further communication with the group won't be allowed. The user can still see old conversations, but won't be able to see or participate in any new conversations with the group. If the new or changed policy that prevents communication is applied to more than one user, the users who are affected by the policy may be removed from group chat. They can still see old conversations.
In this example, Enrico moved to a different department within the organization and is removed from the group chat.
Enrico can no longer send messages to the group chat.
Team: Any users who have been removed from the group are removed from the team and won't be able to see or participate in existing or new conversations.
Currently, users experience the following scenarios if an IB policy blocks another user:
People tab: A user can't see blocked users on the People tab.
People Picker: Blocked users won't be visible in the people picker.
Activity tab: If a user visits the Activity tab of a blocked user, no posts will appear. (The Activity tab displays channel posts only, and there would be no common channels between the two users.)
Here's an example of the activity tab view that is blocked.
Org charts: If a user accesses an org chart on which a blocked user appears, the blocked user won't appear on the org chart. Instead, an error message will appear.
People card: If a user participates in a conversation and the user is later blocked, other users will see an error message instead of the people card when they hover over the blocked user's name. Actions listed on the card (such as calling and chat) will be unavailable.
Suggested contacts: Blocked users don't appear on the suggested contacts list (the initial contact list that appears for new users).
Chat contacts: A user can see blocked users on the chats contact list, but the blocked users will be identified. The only action that the user can perform on the blocked users is to delete them. The user can also select them to view their past conversation.
Calls contacts: A user can see blocked users on the calls contact list, but the blocked users will be identified. The only action that the user can perform on the blocked users is to delete them.
Here's an example of a blocked user in the calls contact list.
Here's an example of the chat being disabled for a user on the calls content list.
Skype to Teams migration: During a migration from Skype for Business to Teams, all users—even those users who are blocked by IB policies—will be migrated to Teams. Those users are then handled as described above.
When a team is created, a SharePoint site is provisioned and associated with Microsoft Teams for the files experience. Information barrier policies aren't honored on this SharePoint site and files by default. To enable information barriers in SharePoint and OneDrive, follow the guidance and steps in the Use information barriers with SharePoint article.
Information barriers modes help strengthen who can be added to or removed from a Team. When using information barriers with Teams, the following IB modes are supported:
Teams created before activating an information barrier policy in your tenant are automatically set to Open mode by default. Once you activate IB policies on your tenant, you're required to update mode of your existing teams to Implicit to ensure that existing teams are IB-compliant. For more information about updating modes, see Change information barriers modes with a PowerShell script.
Use the Set-UnifiedGroup cmdlet with the InformationBarrierMode parameter that corresponds to the mode you want to use for your segments. Allowed list of values for the InformationBarrierMode parameter are Open, Implicit, and Owner Moderated.
For example, to configure the Implicit mode for a Microsoft 365 Group, you'll use the following PowerShell command:
Set-UnifiedGroup -InformationBarrierMode Implicit
To update the mode from Open to Implicit for all existing teams, use this PowerShell script.
If you change the Open mode configuration on existing Teams-connected groups to meet compliance requirements for your organization, you'll need to update the IB modes for associated SharePoint sites connected to the Teams team.
IB policy application is a background IB processor for Teams that gets a notification when there are changes to either users (policy or segment changes) or groups (mode changes). The following steps outline the processing flow:
For more information on licenses and permissions, plans, and pricing, see the subscription requirements for information barriers.
Information barriers in Teams is available in our public, GCC, GCC - High, and DOD clouds.
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