How to block Teams calls and chats with Purview IB

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Introduction

Microsoft Purview’s Information Barriers allow you to restrict communication and collaboration between specific user groups within a Microsoft 365 environment. Their primary purpose is to prevent conflicts of interest or leaks of sensitive information between teams that should not interact directly.

This feature is particularly useful in highly regulated sectors, such as finance, law, and consulting firms, where it is necessary to compartmentalize certain information between departments (for example, between trading and analysis teams).

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Prerequisites

Required licenses

• Microsoft 365 E5.
• Microsoft Purview Suite in addition to another license (E3, Business, …).

Administrator role

• An account with the Global Administrator or Compliance Administrator role to access the Microsoft Purview Portal.

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Step 1 : Sign in to the Microsoft Purview Portal

Sign in to the Microsoft Purview Portal by opening your web browser to https://purview.microsoft.com.

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Step 2 : Create the segments to block

In the left menu, click Solutions, then Information Barriers, and Segments.

Click New segment to create the first segment.

Set a name.

Choose which attribute to filter on. In my case, I decide to filter by the department to which the users belong.

Create the 2nd segment following the same logic.

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Step 3 : Create the Information Barriers policies

In the left menu, click Policies, then Create policy to create the policy in one direction.

Set a name.

Choose the original group …

… then the action and the destination group.

Create the policy in the opposite direction, following the same logic.

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Step 4 : Activate the Information Barriers policies

In the left menu, click Policy applications.

Click Apply all policies …

… and wait a few minutes for the status to be 100% complete.

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Step 4 : Validate the result

Try getting 2 people to communicate in Teams via chat or call … it’s impossible.

Here you can see that my two users were able to talk yesterday, but the chat is now disabled, and the call button has disappeared.

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What will be blocked

Users included in a Purview Information Barriers policy will have the following Teams actions blocked :

• Searching for a user
• Adding a member to a team
• Starting a chat session with someone
• Starting a group chat
• Inviting someone to join a meeting
• Sharing a screen
• Placing a call
• Sharing a file with another user
• Accessing a file through a sharing link

And also in SharePoint and OneDrive :

• Adding a member to a site
• Accessing site or content by a user
• Sharing site or content with another user
• Searching a site

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What won’t be blocked

Information Barriers will not block the sending of emails. If your organization needs to define and control these communications, you can consider using Exchange mail flow rules.

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Conclusion

You now know how to block Teams communications (audio, video and chat) between 2 groups with Purview Information Barriers.

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Sources

Microsoft Learn - Information Barriers

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