Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is a sophisticated processing and orchestration engine that provides AI-powered productivity capabilities by coordinating the following components:

  • Large language models (LLMs)
  • Content in Microsoft Graph, such as emails, chats, and documents that you have permission to access.
  • The Microsoft 365 apps that you use every day, such as Word and PowerPoint.

for a range of tasks and activities. Copilot doesn’t just connect ChatGPT with Microsoft 365; it combines the power of large language models (LLMs) with your data in the Microsoft Graph (including your calendar, emails, chats, documents, meetings, and more) and the Microsoft 365 apps to turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet.

Embedded in the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more, Copilot works alongside you to help unleash your creativity, unlock productivity, and uplevel your skills.

Key highlights of Copilot for Microsoft 365

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is compliant with our existing privacy, security, and compliance commitments to Microsoft 365 commercial customers, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and European Union (EU) Data Boundary.

Prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph aren’t used to train foundation LLMs, including those used by Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 uses Azure OpenAI services for processing, not OpenAI’s publicly available services.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 presents only data that each individual can access using the same underlying controls for data access used in other Microsoft 365 services.

How does Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 use your proprietary organizational data?

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 provides value by connecting LLMs to your organizational data. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 accesses content and context through Microsoft Graph. It can generate responses anchored in your organizational data, such as user documents, emails, calendar, chats, meetings, and contacts. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 combines this content with the user’s working context, such as the meeting a user is in now, the email exchanges the user had on a topic, or the chat conversations the user had last week. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 uses this combination of content and context to help provide accurate, relevant, and contextual responses.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 only surfaces organizational data to which individual users have at least view permissions.  It’s important that you’re using the permission models available in Microsoft 365 services, such as SharePoint, to help ensure the right users or groups have the right access to the right content within your organization. This includes permissions you give to users outside your organization through inter-tenant collaboration solutions, such as shared channels in Microsoft Teams.

When you enter prompts using Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365, the information contained within your prompts, the data they retrieve, and the generated responses remain within the Microsoft 365 service boundary, in keeping with our current privacy, security, and compliance commitments. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 uses Azure OpenAI services for processing, not OpenAI’s publicly available services.

Abuse monitoring for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 occurs in real-time, without providing Microsoft any standing access to customer data, either for human or for automated review.  While abuse moderation, which includes human review of content, is available in Azure OpenAI, Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 services have opted out of it. Microsoft 365 data isn’t collected or stored by Azure OpenAI.

services.

Data stored about user interactions with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365

When a user interacts with Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 apps (such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, Loop, or Whiteboard), we store data about these interactions. The stored data includes the user’s prompt and Copilot’s response, including citations to any information used to ground Copilot’s response. We refer to the user’s prompt and Copilot’s response to that prompt as the “content of interactions” and the record of those interactions is the user’s Copilot interaction history. For example, this stored data provides users with Copilot interaction history in Microsoft Copilot with Graph-grounded chat and meetings in Microsoft Teams. This data is processed and stored in alignment with contractual commitments with your organization’s other content in Microsoft 365. The data is encrypted while it’s stored and isn’t used to train foundation LLMs, including those used by Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365.

 

To view and manage this stored data, admins can use Content search or Microsoft Purview. Admins can also use Microsoft Purview to set retention policies for the data related to chat interactions with Copilot.

 

For Microsoft Teams chats with Copilot, admins can also use Microsoft Teams Export APIs to view the stored data.

 

Your users can delete their Copilot interaction history, which includes their prompts and the responses Copilot returns, by going to the My Account portal.

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 and the EU Data Boundary

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 calls to the LLM are routed to the closest data centers in the region, but also can call into other regions where capacity is available during high utilization periods.

 

For European Union (EU) users, we have additional safeguards to comply with the EU Data Boundary. EU traffic stays within the EU Data Boundary while worldwide traffic can be sent to the EU and other countries or regions for LLM processing.

 

How does Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 protect organizational data?

The permissions model within your Microsoft 365 tenant can help ensure that data won’t unintentionally leak between users, groups, and tenants. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 presents only data that each individual can access using the same underlying controls for data access used in other Microsoft 365 services. Semantic Index honors the user identity-based access boundary so that the grounding process only accesses content that the current user is authorized to access.

 

When you have data that’s encrypted by Microsoft Purview Information Protection, Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 honors the usage rights granted to the user. This encryption can be applied by sensitivity labels or by restricted permissions in Microsoft 365 apps by using Information Rights Management (IRM).

some examples of those forms of protection:

  • Logical isolation of customer content within each tenant for Microsoft 365 services is achieved through Microsoft Entra authorization and role-based access control.
  • Microsoft uses rigorous physical security, background screening, and a multi-layered encryption strategy to protect the confidentiality and integrity of customer content.
  • Microsoft 365 uses service-side technologies that encrypt customer content at rest and in transit, including BitLocker, per-file encryption, Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Internet Protocol Security (IPsec).
  • Your control over your data is reinforced by Microsoft’s commitment to comply with broadly applicable privacy laws, such as the GDPR, and privacy standards, such as ISO/IEC 27018, the world’s first international code of practice for cloud privacy.
  • For content accessed through Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 plug-ins, encryption can exclude programmatic access, thus limiting the plug-in from accessing the content.
Meeting regulatory compliance requirements

As regulation in the AI space evolves, Microsoft will continue to adapt and respond to fulfill future regulatory requirements.

 

Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is built on top of Microsoft’s current commitments to data security and privacy in the enterprise. There’s no change to these commitments. Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is integrated into Microsoft 365 and adheres to all existing privacy, security, and compliance commitments to Microsoft 365 commercial customers.

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Ref. Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

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