M365 Changelog: Outlook – S/MIME sensitivity label support natively on Outlook for Windows

MC484251 – Outlook for Windows will support S/MIME (Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) sign and encryption as sensitivity label outcome. If admins define the label to have S/MIME sign, encryption, or both and emails with those labels will enforce S/MIME accordingly.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 100062

When this will happen:

Current Channel Preview: Microsoft has started rolling this out and expects to complete by mid-December 2022.

Current Channel: Microsoft will begin rolling mid-Dec 2022 and expect to complete by early Jan 2023.

How this will affect your organization:

If you are using Outlook for Win32 built-in labeling, and you have S/MIME label enabled, you will see those S/MIME label shows up in your Outlook for windows Sensitivity dropdown menu, and you could apply those labels with S/MIME certificate to enforce S/MIME sign or encryption, or both. 

What you need to do to prepare:

If you do not use S/MIME on emails, this will not impact you. 

If you do want to use S/MIME on emails, please refer https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/sensitivity-labels-office-apps?view=o365-worldwide#configure-a-label-to-apply-smime-protection-in-outlook to how to set that up on labels.