Fine-grained access control for EPC information services

Abstract

Inter-organizational exchange of information about physical objects that is automatically gathered using RFID can increase the traceability of goods in complex supply chains. With the EPCIS specification, a standard for RFID-based events and respective information system interfaces is available. However, it does not address access control in detail, which is a prerequisite for secure information exchange. We propose a novel rule-based, context-aware policy language for describing access rights on large sets of EPCIS Events. Furthermore, we discuss approaches to enforce these policies and introduce an efficient enforcement mechanism based on query recomposition and its prototypical implementation. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.