Default Sensitivity Labels are now available with the Microsoft 365 E5 licence

Last summer many of you will have seen the excellent announcement that Default Sensitivity Labels were being introduced so that we could apply them to our Document Libraries in SharePoint Online. I was certainly buzzing to include these within my architectures to help ensure more effective and consistent information security and governance – and especially as a way of ensuring contextual and consistent data protection.

However, back in the middle of February this year, information started to surface around the need for a new Microsoft Syntex Advanced Management licence to take advantage of this capability. I hate to admit it, but the thought of having to explain yet another licence to my clients dampened my enthusiasm somewhat.

Perhaps I’d taken my eye off the ball somewhat – as yesterday one of my colleagues (the exceptional Charlie Parmiter) pointed out that Microsoft has now included the ability to set a default sensitivity label within the E5 licence (effectively making the ‘Microsoft Syntex Advanced Management’ licence somewhat of an extension to E3).

This exciting news will make the ability to set default sensitivity labels available to a significantly larger number of organisations – and will, no doubt, be something I’ll make heavy use of in many of the architectures I define in the future.

For anyone interested, here’s the current full list of all of the licences that provide you with the ability to set default sensitivity labels:

To apply a default sensitivity label to a SharePoint document library, the following licences provide user rights:

• Microsoft Syntex – SharePoint Advanced Management
• Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5
• Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5/F5 Compliance
• Microsoft 365 F5 Security and Compliance
• Microsoft 365 E5/A5/G5/F5 Information Protection and Governance
• Office 365 E5/A5/G5

Source: Microsoft 365 guidance for security & compliance – Service Descriptions | Microsoft Learn

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