Are You Following Best Practice To Better Protect and Govern Your Microsoft Teams Data?
Microsoft teams data protection and governance best practices
Get more from your Microsoft Teams investment
Do you want to use Microsoft Teams but have not rolled it out yet?
Does the current configuration of Teams meet your governance needs?
Are you concerned about the security of your Microsoft Teams data?
Are you concerned your employees may delete data from Microsoft Teams?
Do you know what data is being stored in Microsoft Teams?
Here are simple ways to ease your concerns and solve your problems. Read on.
It is vital that any internal data stored within Microsoft Teams is kept safe and that everything is functioning as efficiently as it can for your employees. This often requires implementing some serious governance measures. When setting up Microsoft Teams, there are many things that must be considered from a governance point of view and that solve the challenges that are often seen around storing data, tools, apps and documents in Microsoft Teams.
To overcome these challenges IT Teams are advised to:
- Assess the purpose of setting up groups in Microsoft Teams and set appropriate guidance/policies around these e.g. who will create them, who will moderate them and who will ensure that data contained within these groups stays safe.
- Review your access and ownership policies – decide who will be responsible for controlling access to various elements within your Microsoft Teams environment.
- Control through specific scripts and set configurations which applications and services users can add, along with structuring, naming conventions and file properties.
- Review who is responsible and can save, archive and delete content in Teams
- Review how services and integrations in Microsoft Teams replace and enhance previous business processes and tools
Accountability and Best Practice Should be Second Nature
According to the Information Commissioner Office (ICO), accountability is one of the data protection principles that all businesses must take responsibility for. They must also be able to demonstrate compliance through appropriate technical and organisational measures to meet the requirements of accountability. It is therefore key that data protection and governance when using Microsoft Teams should be second nature and that everyone within an organisation should adhere to best practice.
There are several ways that this can be achieved:
- By adopting and implementing robust data protection policies that apply to all data, files and apps held within Microsoft Teams
- By taking a ‘data protection by design and default’ approach
- By putting written contracts in place for the processing of personal data in Microsoft Teams
- By maintaining up to date documentation of data processing activities and appropriate security measures that have been put in place
- By recording and reporting mechanisms for personal data breaches should they occur
- By running data protection impact assessments within Microsoft Teams to identify high risks
- By appointing a data protection officer to ensure policies and best practice is adhered to
- By establishing, reviewing and updating accountability obligations
- By implementing a privacy management framework to embed accountability measures and create a culture of privacy that builds trust and helps mitigate enforcement action
With effective planning and implementation, all the tools provided within Microsoft Teams and Office 365 can help to facilitate a successfully managed and fully scalable data protection and governance strategy and can save lots of time, effort and cost across businesses. At bluesource, we have a strong history of helping organisations with their data governance strategy, which is why banks, insurance companies and legal firms choose us to help them stay compliant.