Introduction

Organizations generate and store large amounts of data, including financial records, customer information, and internal communications. Without a structured approach to classification, sensitive data might be left unprotected, increasing the risk of data loss, regulatory violations, and security breaches.

Data classification ensures that information is identified, categorized, and labeled based on its sensitivity and business value. By classifying data accurately, organizations can apply security controls, governance policies, and compliance measures to protect it from unauthorized access or accidental exposure.

Microsoft Purview provides classification methods that help organizations manage both structured and unstructured data at scale:

• Sensitive information types (SITs): Detect structured data patterns like financial details and personal identifiers.
• Trainable classifiers: Use AI to recognize unstructured content based on meaning and context rather than predefined patterns.

By applying data classification, organizations can automate protection measures, enforce compliance policies, and improve data governance across Microsoft 365.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, you'll be able to:

• Explain the importance of data classification for protection and governance.
• Describe how sensitive information types (SITs) classify structured data.
• Explain how trainable classifiers identify unstructured data.
• Create a custom trainable classifier to detect organization-specific content.