Implementing Reflective Access Control in SQL

Reflective Database Access Control (RDBAC) is a model in which a database privilege is expressed as a database query itself, rather than as a static privilege in an access control matrix. RDBAC aids the management of database access controls by improving the expressiveness of policies. The Transaction Datalog language provides a powerful syntax and semantics for expressing RDBAC policies, however there is no efficient implementation of this language for practical database systems. This paper demonstrates a strategy for compiling policies in Transaction Datalog into standard SQL views that enforce the policies, including overcoming significant differences in semantics between the languages in handling side-effects and evaluation order.