AI NewsMicrosoft Says Copilot Gained Access to Confidential Outlook Emails Due to Bug: Report

Microsoft Says Copilot Gained Access to Confidential Outlook Emails Due to Bug: Report

12:17 PM IST · February 19, 2026

Microsoft added Copilot Chat across its Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook platforms last year. Now, a recently discovered bug appears to have caused trouble. A Microsoft 365 Copilot bug reportedly allowed the AI assistant to summarise confidential emails for several weeks without permission. This move bypasses Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies that organisations use to protect sensitive data. Microsoft said to have issued a fix for the bug, but the situation has raised serious privacy concerns. Outlook's confidential labelling is generally used for communicating sensitive data.