SharePoint Online Now Offers Data Loss Prevention Features

Data Loss Prevention, a feature in Office 365 Exchange, is now available in SharePoint Online and OneDrive, Microsoft announced on Aug. 27. Couched as “we are taking our first steps for DLP in SharePoint and OneDrive,” the announcement says it’s available “now” and “worldwide.”

What is DLP?

It’s the ability to control the spread of sensitive data, basically. You can search documents and sites for sensitive content, and you can review documents inline, in real time, to search them for possible data leaks.

Additionally, you’ll be able to export lists of documents for further review, and take action on them yourself, whether that action is simply adjusting permissions or going deeper and removing information, or more.

You can also designate what is “sensitive” to your organization, and the pattern-matching capabilities will shift into gear to detect what is there. See the announcement “Search for sensitive content in SharePoint and OneDrive documents” at the Office Blogs, and dive in to the technical aspects at the Microsoft TechNet article “Use DLP in SharePoint Online to identify sensitive data stored on sites.”