Context-Aware Adaptation of Access-Control Policies

Today, public-service delivery mechanisms such as hospitals, police, and fire departments rely on digital generation, storage, and analysis of vital information. To protect critical digital resources, these organizations employ access-control mechanisms, which define rules under which authorized users can access the resources they need to perform organizational tasks. Natural or man-made disasters pose a unique challenge, whereby previously defined constraints can potentially debilitate an organization’s ability to act. Here, the authors propose employing contextual parameters — specifically, activity context in the form of emergency warnings — to adapt access-control policies according to a priori configuration.