Most small businesses don’t spend much time thinking about data privacy until something goes wrong. But with GDPR still firmly in place and customers becoming more privacy-conscious, it’s becoming a key part of building trust and avoiding unwanted problems.

The good news? If your business uses Microsoft 365, you might already have access to a powerful tool that helps improve how your team handles personal data. It’s called Microsoft Priva, and it’s one of the best-kept secrets in the platform.

What is Microsoft Priva?

Microsoft Priva is a built-in privacy management tool that helps businesses reduce the risk of human error when dealing with sensitive or personal data. It works behind the scenes inside your Microsoft 365 environment, flagging potential privacy issues and helping your team build better data habits.

For example, it can spot when someone is about to send personal information outside the business or share a document too widely internally. Instead of blocking anything, Priva simply nudges the user with a helpful reminder. These gentle prompts can stop a privacy issue before it happens.

It also supports your business with things like subject rights requests, giving you the tools to respond when someone asks for their data under GDPR. You can map where personal data lives across your Microsoft ecosystem and gain insights into where your risks might be hiding.

Why Your Business Should Care

Data privacy mistakes don’t just affect big corporations. For small businesses, even a simple error like sending salary info to the wrong person or storing outdated client data could result in fines, reputational damage, or loss of customer trust.

Microsoft Priva helps reduce those risks in a way that’s simple, effective, and already baked into tools your team is likely using every day. It supports a more privacy-aware culture without needing a full-time compliance officer or expensive external software.

How Three Cherries Can Help

At Three Cherries, we’re big on helping Bristol businesses get the most out of their existing tools. Microsoft Priva is something we’ve seen fly under the radar, but when configured properly, it can be a game-changer for data protection and compliance. If you want to know whether Priva is available on your current Microsoft plan or how to set it up properly, get in touch. We’ll walk you through what it does, what to enable, and how to make sure your team is using it in a way that makes sense for your business. At Three Cherries, we take the gamble out of business technology.