Avoid conflicts of interest within your organization by limiting which individuals can communicate and collaborate with each other in Microsoft Teams. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/information-barriers-in-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 https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public 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
