At Microsoft, we’re committed to both data-driven insights and user privacy. As part of that commitment, we’re making a change to Microsoft 365 usage analytics on September 1st to pseudonymize user-level information by default. This change affects the following products and APIs, and will help companies support their local privacy laws:
Global administrators can revert this change for their tenant and show identifiable user information if their organization’s privacy practices allow. This can be achieved in the Microsoft 365 admin center by going to Settings > Org Settings > Services and selecting Reports. Under Choose how to show user information, uncheck the statement In all reports, display de-identified names for users, groups, and sites, and then save your changes. Showing identifiable user information is a logged event in the Microsoft 365 compliance center audit log.
When user identification is enabled, administrative roles and the report reader role will be able to see identifiable user level information. Global reader and Usage Summary Reports Reader roles will not have access to identifiable user information, regardless of the setting chosen.
These changes to the product will bolster privacy for users while still enabling IT professionals to measure adoption trends, track license allocation and determine license renewal in Microsoft 365.
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