On April 21, Microsoft’s security team announced its Customer Lockbox for Office 365 security update. Rajesh Jha the Corporate VP of Office 365 made this announcement. This security feature brings relief for organizations that were skeptical to use software-as-a-service for e-mails and collaboration services. The new security measure can help address their concerns. Also, it is to a key update to Office 365 as it improves transparency and enhances security.

And this is how?

Customer Lockbox will provide control to the customers over their content. Due to the complex workflows and several operations on Office 365, there are some technical issues for which customers need to reach Microsoft’s team.

With Lockbox, in a rare situation when a Microsoft personnel has to gain access to customer data to solve an issue, it will only be after explicit permission from the customer. The mailbox or document control will be granted to the Microsoft personnel through Customer Lockbox. Lockbox is a mechanism wherein access is given customer data control for a limited time only. The activity during the access period is logged.

With Customer Lockbox, Microsoft has gone a step ahead and involved customers to decide whether to give access or not to receive support for an issue that required human intervention. So the technical Microsoft personnel will not get access to customer data without the customer’s knowledge and approval.

The facility will be activated for Exchange Online by the end of 2015 and SharePoint Online users can use it by 2016.