Data Security & Classification
Knowing your data is one thing; protecting it is another. Sensitive information lives everywhere: contracts in SharePoint, customer data in operational systems, HR files in mailboxes, and increasingly, all of it within reach of AI assistants. It starts with a confronting question: do you know where your sensitive data is?
In practice
Data security is often approached as a wall around the network. Modern reality is different: data moves, gets copied, shared, exported and now summarized by AI assistants. Effective protection therefore travels with the data, and that requires knowing what the data is. Discovery and classification come first: automatically scanning your estate to find and label sensitive information such as personal data, financial data and confidential documents.
On that foundation the controls become precise instead of blunt. Information protection applies labels and encryption that stay with a document wherever it goes. Data loss prevention stops sensitive data from leaving through mail, chat or upload, with policies tuned to warn, coach or block as appropriate. Insider risk management watches for the patterns that precede data theft or accidental leaks.
AI adoption makes all of this urgent. Copilot surfaces any document your permissions allow, including the ones they shouldn't. Data security posture management (DSPM) for AI gives you visibility and guardrails on how AI interacts with sensitive data, so you can roll out Copilot with confidence instead of anxiety. And because classification, protection and monitoring share one foundation, your compliance evidence for GDPR, DORA, NIS2 and ISO 27001 comes from the same place, which makes audits dramatically easier.
Data security starts with knowing where your sensitive data is. Classification makes protection precise: labels and encryption that travel with the data, loss prevention that stops leaks, and guardrails that make AI rollout safe.
The symptoms we see most often
- Nobody can say with confidence where all personal or confidential data lives.
- Oversharing in SharePoint and Teams has grown for years; permissions are a historical accident.
- The Copilot rollout is stalled because security can't sign off on what it might surface.
- DLP was tried once, blocked the wrong things, and was turned off after two weeks.
- Every audit or DORA/NIS2 question triggers a scramble of screenshots and spreadsheets.
These are solvable, and solving them typically unblocks the AI agenda as a direct side effect.
Two fixed-price assessments
Not sure where you stand? These Purview-based assessments turn "we think we have an exposure problem" into a concrete, prioritized picture within weeks, each at a fixed price with clear deliverables.
Purview Data Risk Visibility Assessment
Uncover where your sensitive data lives, how it moves, and where it is exposed.
- Where and how much sensitive data is stored across Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams and devices
- What sensitive data is discovered, and how much stale data exists
- Where data is moving: external sharing, shadow IT and personal tools, USB and Bluetooth
- How much data is being exfiltrated by end users
Purview-Powered AI Risk Assessment
See your AI risks clearly, and secure them with Purview.
- M365 data exposure and oversharing exposure
- Insights in M365 Copilot and GenAI usage, and what sensitive data is being put into AI
- Whether the proper controls are in place to keep AI from processing or leaking sensitive data
- Copilot prompt deletion controls and monitoring for ethical AI usage
Better together: combined, the two assessments give you a complete, 360° view of your data risks and the controls needed to safely adopt Copilot and GenAI: end-to-end risk visibility, AI controls aligned to your actual data landscape, blind spots eliminated, and one unified remediation roadmap that accelerates safe AI adoption.
Our services
Discovery & classification
Automated scanning of Microsoft 365, Azure and connected sources to find and label sensitive data, with a classification taxonomy designed to be usable, not just comprehensive.
Information protection & DLP
Sensitivity labels with encryption that travels with documents, and DLP policies rolled out the right way: simulation first, coaching before blocking, tuned until they protect without paralyzing.
DSPM for AI & Copilot readiness
Visibility on how AI interacts with sensitive data, oversharing remediation, and guardrails that let you say yes to Copilot with evidence rather than hope.
Insider risk & compliance reporting
Detection of risky patterns around departures and exfiltration, and reporting that turns your controls into standing compliance evidence for GDPR, DORA, NIS2 and ISO 27001.
Adoption & change management
The best security configuration fails if people don't understand or trust it. We build adoption plans, communication materials and training that get end users on board, because sustainable data security is as much about people as it is about policy.
How an engagement runs
Fair warning: this is business-heavy work, not a purely technological project. The tooling is the easy part; the value comes from workshops with your data owners, decisions about definitions, ownership and priorities, and the change management that makes new habits stick. We facilitate exactly that, alongside the implementation.
Discover & classify
Scan the estate, quantify exposure, and land a classification taxonomy that sticks.
Protect
Labels, encryption and DLP rolled out in rings: simulate, coach, then enforce.
Govern AI access
DSPM for AI, oversharing cleanup and guardrails ahead of the Copilot rollout.
Monitor & report
Insider risk detection, tuning, and compliance reporting as a standing capability.
Typical deliverables
What we work with
Our reference technology is Microsoft Purview, the data security platform natively integrated with Microsoft 365, Azure and Fabric. element61 combines data governance and data security expertise that few partners bring together, so classification serves both protection and cataloging.
- Microsoft Purview
- Information Protection
- Data Loss Prevention
- DSPM for AI
- Insider Risk Management
Frequently asked questions
Will DLP block our people from doing their jobs?
Not if it's rolled out right. We start every policy in simulation, review real traffic with your team, coach users before blocking anything, and tune until false positives are rare. Blunt DLP fails; tuned DLP disappears into the background.
Can we roll out Copilot before this is done?
You can roll out Copilot to a pilot group while remediation runs, but broad rollout before oversharing is addressed means Copilot will faithfully surface everything your permissions accidentally allow. A focused readiness track typically takes weeks, not quarters.
We're not a Microsoft-only shop. Does this still apply?
Purview scans well beyond Microsoft 365, covering Azure, databases and third-party sources. For estates with significant other platforms we design a pragmatic scope: protect where the sensitive data and the risk actually concentrate first.
Know where you stand in a few weeks
The fastest first step is a Data Governance Maturity Scan: an objective view of your current maturity, a benchmark against peers, and a prioritized roadmap.