Blog Post

Microsoft Teams Blog
2 MIN READ

Information Barriers Preview

Christopher Bryan's avatar
Apr 30, 2019

Avoid conflicts of interest within your organization by limiting which individuals can communicate and collaborate with each other in Microsoft Teams. Information Barriers in Microsoft Teams, now in Preview, helps limit the flow of information by controlling communication between the holders of information and colleagues representing different interests, for example, in Firstline Worker scenarios.

 

As an Administrator, you can create these policies using the Security & Compliance Center PowerShell cmdlets.

 

Figure 1: Create Information Barriers Policies via PowerShell.

 

Once a policy is in effect, it will apply to Teams events and users will not be able to complete the following actions if they violate any part of the information barrier policy:

 

Action

User Experience if policy is violated

Adding Members to a team 

The user will not show up in search

Start a new private chat 

The chat is not created, and an error message appears

invited a user to join a meeting 

The user will not join the meeting and an error message appears

Screen sharing is initiated 

The screen share won’t be allowed, and an error message appears

Placing a phone call (VOIP)

The voice call is blocked

 

Figure 2: Meet Ethical Wall requirements with Information Barriers in Teams.

 

When a new information barrier is created, the evaluation service searches across Teams to find any pre-existing communications that may violates the policy:

  • Existing 1:1 chats will become read-only
  • Users will be removed from group chats
  • Team membership will be updated accordingly

The ability to create Information Barriers policies during preview is open to all customers. When we announce General Availability of this capability, only customers with the appropriate licenses will be able to continue using this functionality.

 

Let us know what you think!
If you have suggestions on how to make Teams better, please submit your idea via User Voice or vote for existing ideas to help us prioritize the requests. We read every piece of feedback that we receive to make sure that Microsoft Teams meets your needs.
Christopher Bryan, Microsoft Teams

 

Updated Jan 26, 2021
Version 6.0