Microsoft Purview · Information Protection
Information Protection Readers
View-only access to information protection reports and analytics dashboards.
Scope: Read-only dashboard, reporting, and analytics access without investigation capabilities
Permissions
- View information protection dashboards and analytics
- Access DLP and sensitivity label reports
- Review classification and protection trends and metrics
- Export reports, charts, and aggregate data for leadership
- View Activity Explorer data (read-only, no file content)
- Access information protection summary reports
- Monitor DLP policy effectiveness and alert volumes
- Review label application coverage and trends
- View aggregate sensitive information type statistics
Common use cases
- Executive dashboards for information protection program oversight
- Board reporting on data protection effectiveness and compliance metrics
- Compliance metrics and trend analysis for audit and regulatory reporting
- Program health monitoring and maturity assessment
- Risk committee reporting on data protection posture
- External audit support with read-only access to metrics
- Business unit leaders monitoring their department's classification compliance
Best practices
- Use for executive and governance reporting dashboards
- Generate regular program health reports for leadership and board
- Monitor trends to identify emerging gaps or training needs
- Share aggregate metrics while protecting individual user privacy
- Create custom Power BI reports using exported data for deeper analysis
- Track DLP false positive rates to measure policy tuning effectiveness
- Monitor label adoption rates by department or business unit
- Benchmark protection coverage against industry standards and best practices
Security considerations
- Cannot view individual files, alerts, or content - minimal privacy impact
- Aggregate data and trends only - safe for broad executive access
- Lowest risk information protection role - no configuration or investigation access
- Activity Explorer data is anonymized at aggregate level
- Reports may still reveal business-sensitive metrics and trends