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Copilot in Edge Sidebar and access to current webpage

Posted on June 19, 2024June 19, 2024 by Jörgen Nilsson

This has been a discussion point for a couple of weeks now at least in Sweden and EU and it is time to write a short post on the topic. I see many organizations disabling both Copilot and the Edge Sidebar which can be used to access Copilot. Which is always sad in some perspective as we remove new features for our end users.
Accessing Copilot can still be done by simply using a browser or we use ChatGPT instead or another AI solution out there, so we are not really stopping the end users from using the services and copy pasting information (there are other Microsoft solutions for that).

What is the challenge and fuss about the Copilot in the Edge Sidebar in EU when writing this? There is a feature that allows Copilot access to the current webpage your have open and that data could be sent outside the EU for processing. If you buy Microsoft 365 Copilot then your data will stay in the region your are in.
More information can be found here: Copilot Privacy and Protections | Microsoft Learn

But instead of disabling the whole Edge Sidebar there are two new settings introduced in Edge v124 that can be used to control whether Copilot have access to the current webpage and browser history or not. If we look in Microsoft Edge the setting is called “Allow Copilot to read context clues on the web”

If we ask Copilot in Edge if it can help you with the current webpage, translate it or anything else it will ask the user to turn on the access to the current webpage which is turned off by default.

Based on this I would recommend setting the two new settings instead of disabling the Edge Sidebar altogether from a user experience perspective. They are available both as a Group Policy and Intune policy in the settings catalog.

Then Copilot in the Edge sidebar will not have access to the current webpage you are
visiting but we can still allow the end user to use the Sidebar.



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My name is Jörgen Nilsson and I work as a Senior Consultant at Onevinn in Malmö, Sweden. This is my blog where I will share tips and stuff for my own and everyone elses use on Enterprise Mobility and Windows related topics.
All code is provided "AS-IS" with no warranties.

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