Translating role-based access control policy within context

Abstract

The motivation for this work derives from a study undertaken with a view to providing ubiquitous access to Electronic Health Records (EHRs) held within the National Health Service in England. Any implementation must guarantee confidentiality. In October 1999 the Cambridge Computer Laboratory’s Opera group joined a consortium within the Eastern Regional Health Authority to propose an experimental architecture which included role-based access control (RBAC). Specifying a policy for role-based access has two aspects: first, the conditions for entering each role must be established; secondly, the access privileges associated with each role must be defined. Access control policy must implement public policy and its expression must be transparent to computer non-specialists. We have therefore designed and implemented a pseudo-natural language framework sufficient for both of these purposes. Policy statements are translated into first-order logic, with side conditions which are evaluated by consulting a context-dependent database, and subsequently into access control procedures.