Sensitive Information Types

Sensitive Information Types or SITs are pre-defined or custom patterns used to classify and identify important information that needs to be protected. Which classifiers are used are dependent on industry and necessary compliance and/or regulatory needs. Every organization will have some level of sensitive information whether it is their employees Personally Identifiable Information (PII), credit card information used in processing transactions  that needs to be limited and protected for PCI, or health chare information.

There are many pre defined SITs for standardized types of data - bank account and routing numbers for different locations, social security numbers, secret keys for common cloud services, drivers license numbers, passports, blood test or other medical diagnostic codes, etc. This full list can be viewed in the Purview portal (compliance.microsoft.com) under Data Classification > Classifiers > Sensitive Information Types.

Individual documents can be uploaded to test the SIT by selecting it from the list and clicking on the test button.

Custom SITs are allowed to find information unique to a company.