  While Mandatory Access Controls (MAC) are appropriate for multilevel secure
military applications, Discretionary Access Controls (DAC) are often perceived
as meeting the security processing needs of industry and civilian government.
This paper argues that reliance on DAC as the principal method of access
control is unfounded and inappropriate for many commercial and civilian
government organizations. The paper describes a type of non-discretionary
access control - role-based access control (RBAC) - that is more central to the
secure processing needs of non-military systems than DAC.

Cryptography and Security