Create information barriers in Slack

By default, any member of an Enterprise Grid organization can send direct messages (DMs) and start huddles with any member of their organization. To prevent specific members from sending DMs or starting a huddle with each other, you can create information barriers between IDP groups. This allows your organization to avoid conflicts of interest and safeguard sensitive information.

What to expect

  • Members will see a message informing them of an information barrier in any conversations they’re barred from participating in.
  • Any existing DMs will become read-only when an information barrier is created between any members in the conversation. New DMs and huddles will be blocked if two or more participating members have a barrier between them.
  • Groups you’d like to create barriers between must be configured in your IDP before you create an information barrier in Slack.
  • If members of IDP groups with a barrier between them are in the same workspace or some of the same channels, they will still be able to interact in public and private channels.

Ready to get started? Contact our Support team to enable information barriers for your organization.


Create information barriers

  1. From your desktop, click your workspace name in the sidebar.
  2. Hover over Tools & settings, then click Organization settings.
  3. Click  Security in the left-side column, then choose Information Barriers.
  4. Click Create Barrier.
  5. Open the drop-down menu to select a primary group.
  6. Under Barriered From, start typing the name of the IDP group you’d like to prevent from contacting the primary group. Select the group from the list of suggested options. Repeat this step for as many groups as you’d like.
  7. Click Save.
Who can use this feature?
  • Org Owners and Org Admins
  • Available on the Enterprise Grid plan