Use Sensitive Info Types to classify your structured data assets at column level

[inward-eye]

We are excited to announce that Microsoft Purview has extended the support of Sensitive info types (SITs) to Azure and 3P data assets in the Data Map/Catalog. Before this release, SITs could only be applied at file level. Now, you can apply SITs more granularly, i.e., at column level, for structured non-M365 assets. This helps you get additional visibility in Know Your Data (KYD) scenarios.

You can apply SITs to Azure and 3P data objects manually or automatically, including built-in and custom SITs. Sensitivity labels are derived automatically from SITs. And you can create reports related to SITs for non-M365 data assets. Furthermore, dozens and dozens of different data source types are available (see classification column here).

This capability is now available as a Preview to new Microsoft Purview Data Map customers. Existing Microsoft Purview Data Map customers will be offered this capability at a later point.

Background

Sensitive info types (SITs) help you identify sensitive items in your organization’s data estate, such as credit card numbers or personal identifiable information. SITs are a type of classifier that can be manually or automatically applied to data objects. The manual application involves a curator selecting the appropriate SIT and applying it as a tag to a unstructured document, to a structured dataset or to a column in the dataset. The automatic application involves Microsoft Purview scanning files and running pattern recognition algorithms (e.g., RegEx rules, dictionaries) to apply these tags. The SIT taxonomy defines a good number of out of the box (built-in) SITs but also gives you the flexibility to create new SITs (a.k.a. custom SITs) and tailor the pattern recognition rules to the type of information and scenarios you care about. SITs can be managed from the Compliance classic experience or via the Information Protection tab in the new Microsoft Purview portal.

Figure 1: Sensitive info types

What is new

New Purview Data Map customers are now able to:

• Manually or automatically apply SITs to Azure and 3P data assets
• See SITs applied to structured data under the asset details page (dataset level) and the schema details page (column level) in Microsoft Purview Catalog.

Figure 2: Data assets example screenshot

• Apply sensitivity labels automatically based on the SITs that are applied to the assets.

• See a number of SIT related reports in the Insights experience

Figure 3: Sensitive info type insights

Additional resources

• What are Sensitive info types?
• The SIT taxonomy