Entitlement

The level of access that should be delivered by agreement through law, for example the user may have the right to access a database due to a license agreement.

Usually the term is used as part of the discussion when considering the situation where a particular group of users have distinct levels of access to different elements of a system. For example if looking at a medical database all users may be entitled to access their own records, doctors may have access to information about their patients and so on.

The concept is tied to a legal definition, not a technical one. So the fact that someone is entitled to access a record does not mean that they can, conversely the fact they can access a record does not mean they are entitled to.

In practice most entitlements implementations do not assign rights to individuals but rather to roles.

Links to this page

The following pages link to here: Accessibility, Role