I recently heard a Consultant from another Microsoft partner talking about storing “IL3” information in Azure. That rang alarm bells with me, because Impact Levels (ILs) haven’t been a “thing” for UK Government data since April 2014. For the record, here’s the official guidance on the UK Government data security classifications and this video explains why the system was changed:

Meanwhile, this one is a good example of what it means in practice:

So, what does that mean for storing data in Azure, Dynamics 365 and Office 365? Basically, information classified OFFICIAL can be stored in the Microsoft Cloud – for more information, refer to the Microsoft Trust Center. And, because OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE is not another classification (it’s merely highlighting information where additional care may be needed), that’s fine too.

I’ve worked with many UK Government organisations (local/regional, and central) and most are looking to the cloud as a means to reduce costs and improve services. The fact that more than 90% of public data is classified OFFICIAL (indeed, that’s the default for anything in Government) is no reason to avoid using the cloud.