The most concrete sourced number
Flex Routing can move inference out of the EU Data Boundary to the US, Canada or Australia at capacity peaks. For tenants created after 2026-03-25 it is on by default (sources: cypheron.cz, Microsoft EU Data Boundary, research dated 2026-09-01).
What that means in practice
It is not a breach of contract and not an incident — it is a documented operational decision. But it moves the answer to "does this content leave the European legal area?" from a no to a depends on load.
If you have to answer that question, a provider setting cannot answer it durably:
- The setting can change, with the product or with the tenant.
- There is no prompt-level record of where a request was routed.
- A capacity peak is by definition the moment the exception applies.
The boundary that does not depend on a setting
If the prompt leaves your environment only masked, the provider's routing decision is irrelevant to your cleartext. Classification, masking and the decision then sit with you, logged at the boundary you draw — not in a setting somebody else maintains.
Check rather than believe. This page names its date and its sources because the date is what makes the difference here. Look up your own tenant setting instead of relying on a page — including this one.