What are data sensitivity labels? (Microsoft Guidance)

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When you assign a sensitivity label to content, it’s like a stamp that’s applied and is:

• Customizable. Specific to your organization and business needs, you can create categories for different levels of sensitive content in your organization. For example, Personal, Public, General, Confidential, and Highly Confidential.
• Clear text. Because a label is stored in clear text in the metadata for files and emails, third-party apps and services can read it and then apply their own protective actions, if required.
• Persistent. Because the label is stored in metadata for files and emails, the label stays with the content, no matter where it’s saved or stored. The label identification that’s unique to your organization becomes the basis for applying and enforcing policies that you configure.

When viewed by users in your organization, an applied sensitivity label appears like a tag on apps and can be easily integrated into their existing workflows. Your sensitivity labels aren’t visible in apps to users from other organizations, or to guests.

The following example shows an opened email where another user has applied the sensitivity label named General, which doesn’t apply encryption. The label description supplied by the admin displays more detail to users about the category of data identified by this sensitivity label.

Note: Don’t confuse sensitivity labels with Outlook’s built-in sensitivity levels that indicate the sender’s intention but can’t provide data security.

Each item that supports sensitivity labels can have a single sensitivity label applied to it from your organization. Documents and emails can have both a sensitivity label and a retention label applied to them.