# Tenant permissions

> The sharing and access settings across your organisation's Microsoft 365 environment that decide which mail, files and sites each person can open, and so what Copilot can surface.

**Category:** Copilot

**Copilot sees what you can see, no more and no less.** It [grounds](/glossary#grounding) answers in [Microsoft Graph](/glossary#microsoft-graph), and Microsoft states that it only surfaces organisational data you have at least view permission for. It relies on the same access controls as SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook and Teams, so it never overrides them.

The catch is in the word "can". Old, loosely shared folders that nobody remembers granting access to are within reach too, and a broad question can bring them back up. Copilot did not create that exposure; it removed the friction that kept it harmless. That is why the track treats a **periodic look at what is shared across your tenant** as part of using Copilot responsibly, the practical side of the EU AI Act's Article 4 AI-literacy duty.

## At work

Someone asks Copilot to summarise everything about the salary review and gets a two-year-old HR spreadsheet that was once shared with the whole company by mistake. Copilot respected the permissions; the permissions were wrong.

## Often confused with

Sharing an agent. Sharing an Agent Builder agent passes on only the knowledge sources you added. It never widens anyone's tenant permissions, and the agent still respects the permissions of whoever chats with it.

## Related terms

- Microsoft Graph
- Grounding
- Add content
- Knowledge source

## See it in a lesson

[Giving Copilot context](/en/learn/copilot/getting-started/giving-copilot-context)

## Further reading

- [Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft 365 Copilot (Microsoft Learn)](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/copilot/microsoft-365/microsoft-365-copilot-privacy): How Copilot only shows data each person can already access.
- [What information does Copilot use to answer my prompt? (Microsoft Support)](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-copilot/what-information-does-copilot-use-to-answer-my-prompt): Which sources Copilot draws on when it answers you.

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Last updated: 14/10/2026  
Source: Rollo Academy glossary