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Micwats's avatar
Micwats
Copper Contributor
Aug 21, 2025

Office documents receiving second classification

I have recently implemented purview within my organisation and setup the Sensitivity Labels and policies as per guidelines listed in the Australian government secure cloud blueprint. This is including sensitive information types which I am of the belief should recognise documents and their label/ classification

All is working quite well, labels are being applied with emails, documents and the likes without issue. 

When opening a previously classified/ labelled document from an external source. Opening the document is fine, when editing the document it is requesting sensitivity label must be placed before continuing. This then leads to 2 classification markers on the document and seemingly overrides the originally set classification.
Within the meta data of the document and in its required locations all classification detail is present. even utilising the test function in the sensitive info types on the document it is indeed showing that it recognises the labels and classifications.

 

Purview enterprise account type if that at all helps. 

Cheers
Michael

 

1 Reply

  • nikkichapple's avatar
    nikkichapple
    MVP
    Aug 22, 2025

    Each Microsoft 365 tenant has its own unique set of sensitivity labels, even if multiple organisations follow a shared classification framework such as a national standard. Sensitivity labels are stored as metadata that includes the tenant ID and a label GUID, ensuring that labels are scoped and enforced within the originating tenant.

    When a document labelled in Tenant A is shared with a user in Tenant B, the label metadata remains intact. However, unless Tenant B has a label with a matching GUID, the label may not be recognised or enforced. In such cases, the document may appear unlabelled to users in Tenant B, depending on how their label policies are configured.

    As a result, Tenant B may prompt the user to apply a label or automatically apply a default label. This can lead to the document containing two sets of label metadata:

      • One from Tenant A (original label)
      • One from Tenant B (new label)

    So what you are seeing is what is designed. 

    For more information Manage sensitivity labels in Office apps | Microsoft Learn

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