SECAI Core · phase 4 of 15
Data access
Control of which data a user or entity within the AI system has access to
The Explain card
- Plain English
- Data access is the control of which data each user, service or component inside an AI system is allowed to reach.
- Example
- A retrieval chatbot is given read access to the whole document store. A user from sales asks about salaries and the model happily summarises HR files it should never have seen.
- Why it matters
- Models inherit the permissions they are given, then share what they find with whoever is asking. Access control must be enforced at the data layer, not left to the model's judgement.
- Hook
- The model can only leak what it was allowed to read.
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 4: Data Integrity, Governance, and Provenance
Once you know what data is, learn the principles that keep it trustworthy, traceable, and minimized throughout its lifecycle.
