About e-mail messages with restricted permission

You can create e-mail messages with restricted permission using Information Rights Management only in Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003.

Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 offers a new feature, Information Rights Management (IRM), which helps you prevent sensitive e-mail messages from getting into the hands of people whom you do not intend to view the message, whether by accident or carelessness. You can create messages with restricted permission to help prevent messages from being forwarded, printed, or copied. If you attach a Microsoft Office 2003 document to a message with restricted permission, the document will be automatically restricted. However, if permission is already restricted for the attached document, and then you restrict permission for the message, the attachment retains its existing permission.

By using Permission on the toolbar, you can restrict permission on an e-mail message for specific recipients you want to read the message. As the message sender, you can remove restricted permission from a saved draft of a message by clicking Permission on the toolbar again. Recipients can open and read an e-mail message with restricted permission just as they would a message that doesn't have restricted permission. If recipients don't have Outlook 2003 or later installed on their computers, they can download the Rights Management Add-on for Internet Explorer or another program that supports content with restricted permission.

E-mail administrators can create permission policies to include on the Outlook Permission submenu (or Permission on the File menu). These permission policies define who can read messages and what actions recipients can take with those messages. For example, an e-mail administrator might define a policy called "Company Confidential" that specifies that a message using that policy can be opened only by people inside the company domain. When you compose a message, you can choose from up to 20 customized policies on the Permission submenu (depending on how many policies the e-mail administrator provides).

Another benefit to restricting permission for e-mail messages is that message expiration is enforced. You set an expiration date for a message by using the Options menu (with the message open), restrict permission for the message, and then send the message. When the message expires, recipients can still see the message header in Outlook folders with a line through the header text, but they cannot open or take any other actions on the message.

If you do not restrict permission for a message, you can still set a message expiration date. After that date, the message headers will appear in folders with a line through the header text. However, recipients can still open and work with the message.