Anyone who has worked with Purview roles has probably felt this.
Purview can grant powerful permissions like Search, Export, Search & Purge, but the identity enforcement hasn’t always lived where the data lives.
That matters because those actions operate directly on Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams data. Having compliance permissions detached from Entra identity was always an uncomfortable design choice.
👉🏻Microsoft is now fixing that. By Feb–March 2026, high-privileged Purview roles will no longer operate independently. They’ll be automatically mapped to new Microsoft Entra roles and bring identity and compliance enforcement back together.
- Purview roles will automatically sync to new Entra roles.
- Admins performing sensitive actions must also have the right Entra identity permissions.
- Access is enforced end-to-end: identity + workload.
- Microsoft 365 services will trust Entra, not just Purview role assignments.
Some important nuances are:
- You’ll see new Purview-specific Entra roles (Reader / Writer / Administrator).
- If a user has multiple Purview roles, the highest privilege wins.
- Don’t assign these roles directly in Entra; Purview owns and manages them.
- Role sync happens automatically (usually within ~15 minutes).
- Expect these roles to appear in audit logs.
For exact role mappings between Purview and Entra, check the feature image above.
I see Microsoft is tightening the integration between compliance tools and identity governance, especially for high-risk operations.