Protect documents with Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP)

When handling documents with confidential or sensitive data, encryption is often used to protect documents from unauthorized access. When documents are encrypted, no matter where they are stored and sent to, only authorized users can open your encrypted documents to view or edit the contents.

In HKUST, Microsoft Purview Information Protection, MIP (formerly Azure Information Protection, AIP) is used to protect documents. This webpage summarizes the essential steps for you to get started to make use of the protection technology.

MIP Exercise

To ensure colleagues can master fundamental MIP skills, ITSO has prepared an exercise built on our Canvas Learning Management System. The exercise has a quiz which will be graded.

Before taking the exercise, you should have either attended our previous trainings "Data protection with MIP" ( video recordings - English [slides], Cantonese [slides] ) or read through contents in this webpage.

Click the link below to login to Canvas to start the exercise

Start MIP Exercise

Available To

Staff

Service Fee

Free

Service Hours

7x24

How-to Guides

1. Getting Started - Supported Systems and Required Software

Follow the links below to view the installation instructions of the required software for Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP).

Document Types	MIP Supported Systems & Applications
	Windows 11 or 10	macOS	iOS	Android
Office Documents & Email (Word, Excel, PowerPoint & Outlook)	Office 365 [1]	Office 365	Microsoft 365 app & Outlook	Microsoft 365 app & Outlook
PDF	View only Microsoft Edge browser or Acrobat Reader [2] View and Protect MIP Client [3] or Foxit PDF Editor [4]	View only Microsoft Edge browser or Acrobat Reader [2] View and Protect RMS Sharing app or Foxit PDF Editor [4]	View only Microsoft 365 app & Outlook	View only Microsoft 365 app & Outlook
Other Document Types (e.g. .txt, jpg, etc.)	MIP Client [3]	RMS Sharing app	Not Supported	Not Supported

(Important: Remember to sign in to your Microsoft Office with your ITSO username and password after the installation.)

Notes:

[1]

Office 365 is recommended as it provides better integration and collaboration features with other Microsoft products. It also provides continuous security and feature updates.
To protect email with MIP, you will need to use Microsoft Outlook.

[2]

On Windows, to view MIP-protected PDF files, you may use the latest version of Microsoft Edge browser or Adobe Reader.   You may also use the MIP client (add link to the MIP page) to view and enforce MIP protection to PDF files and other file types (e.g. .txt, .jpg, etc.).

On macOS, to view MIP-protected PDF files, you may use the latest version of Microsoft Edge browser or Adobe Reader.  The RMS Sharing app is used for viewing MIP-protected file types (e.g. .txt, .jpg, etc.) excluding PDF and Microsoft Office documents.

[3]

The MIP client is needed only if you need to protect PDF files (and other file types besides Microsoft Office files, e.g. CSV files or images) or if you use Office 2016. Microsoft Office 365 already has built-in support for using MIP to protect files and email.
The MIP client allows you to add a sensitivity label to a file in Windows File Explorer (via mouse right-clicking the file). It provides more permission settings to protect your files.
To install the MIP client, please refer to this webpage.

[4]

Foxit PDF Editor can connect with Microsoft to enable the MIP features. For details, please refer to this webpage.

2. Understanding Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP) Sensitivity Labels

Click here to view more details

3. Protecting Documents with Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP)

Click here to view the instructions on using MIP to protect documents

4. Sending and Reading Confidential Emails with Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP)

Click here to view the instructions on using MIP to protect email

Learn More