Authorization and Access Control of Application Data in Workflow Systems

Authors: Wu S.¹; Sheth A.²; Miller J.³; Luo Z.⁴

Source: Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, Volume 18, Number 1, January 2002 , pp. 71-94(24)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

Workflow Management Systems (WfMSs) are used to support the modeling and coordinated execution of business processes within an organization or across organizational boundaries. Although some research efforts have addressed requirements for authorization and access control for workflow systems, little attention has been paid to the requirements as they apply to application data accessed or managed by WfMSs. In this paper, we discuss key access control requirements for application data in workflow applications using examples from the healthcare domain, introduce a classification of application data used in workflow systems by analyzing their sources, and then propose a comprehensive data authorization and access control mechanism for WfMSs. This involves four aspects: role, task, process instance-based user group, and data content. For implementation, a predicate-based access control method is used. We believe that the proposed model is applicable to workflow applications and WfMSs with diverse access control requirements.

Keywords: Workflow management system; authorization; access control; predicate-based access control; workflow process metadata-data; security; workflow repository

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: The University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland G1 1XH. shengli@cs.strath.ac.uk http://Isdis.cs.uga.edu 2: LSDIS Lab, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. amit@cs.uga.edu 3: LSDIS Lab, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. jam@cs.uga.edu 4: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, NY 10598, USA. zongwei@us.ibm.com

Publication date: 2002-01-01