Definition
Plain language
Rules that decide which files, accounts or tools a program is allowed to touch.
As stated in the literature
Policy layer governing which principals may read or act on which resources; the episode's argument is that per-field access control fails when the sensitive attribute is inferable from many correlated fields.
Also called: access controls, access-control
Why it matters: Access control is the main lever most systems give you for limiting an assistant, so if it only blocks named fields while the sensitive fact leaks through correlated ones, the protection is weaker than it looks.
For example, you might let a shopping assistant read your calendar but not your bank statements — yet it can still guess your income from the private-school pickups and business-class flights on that calendar.
Heard on the show
“There's no per-user access control, no review of writes, no audit log of who added which node.”Episode 039 — When Smarter Agents Get Fooled by Three Extra Nodes in a Database