- Copilot Chat read sent and draft emails, but the Inbox folder appears to be protected
- The bug (CW1226324) was identified in January, a fix followed in February
- Although the fix is rolling out, this is still an ongoing issue
Microsoft has confirmed that a bug in M365 Copilot Chat allowed the AI chatbot to digest confidential emails without users’ permission, bypassing data loss prevention (DLP) policies and sensitivity/confidentiality labels designed to block Copilot from accessing emails in the first place.
Although inboxes were unaffected, Copilot Chat gained access to Sent and Drafts folders and presumably entire threads within them, including incoming emails.
Tracked internally as CW1226324, the bug was first identified on January 21, 2026, but the company has already implemented a fix and continues to monitor the situation.
M365 Copilot Chat read your sensitive emails
“User email messages with a confidential label applied are being handled incorrectly by Microsoft 365 Copilot chat,” the message reads.
Microsoft says that a code bug caused the problem, which allowed the tagged emails to be retrieved: “A code issue is allowing items in the Sent Items and Drafts folders to be picked up by Copilot even though confidential labels are in place.”
The company began rolling out a fix in early February, which it continues to monitor, but it appears that this is an ongoing issue that has yet to be fully resolved.
Microsoft is also believed to be contacting affected users as the patch rolls out as it continues to verify the fix.
The timing of Microsoft’s blunder is also very unfortunate, with the European Parliament recently banning all AI tools from worker devices on the grounds that many systems were sharing data with the cloud, even though they could in theory process it locally.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, video unboxings, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
