Locale-based access control: placing collaborative authorization decisions in context

Collaboration systems require an appropriate authorization model to specify and maintain policies that not only facilitate group activities but also enforce restrictions and accountability. Existing models fail to incorporate adequately into authorization decisions the rich notion of context that is inherent to any collaborative setting. In this paper we present the locale-based access control (locale-BAC) model for collaborative systems, a model whose design is based upon the application of Fitzpatrick's locale framework for collaboration to the problem of access control. This model encapsulates the notion of context using locales, allowing for a natural representation of collaborative authorization decisions.