Ontology Based Access Control: A Case Study through Ontology Based Data Access

Abstract

Ontology Based Data Access (OBDA) is the provision of data access and data integration as a result of the mapping that is established between an ontology and a data source. Thus, storing large amounts of data becomes easier, more powerful queries can be written, and management of complex information systems can be performed quickly and effectively by using Semantic Web technologies. Ontology Based Access Control (OBAC) uses Semantic Web technologies to enable the enforcement of access control mechanism. Therefore, only authorized persons can access data to protect data privacy. In this study, OBDA and OBAC are integrated to improve security while providing data virtualization with a data model-independent access control approach. Therefore, a use case study for the healthcare domain is presented. Hence, a relational database for the hospital domain, a Hospital Ontology for the related hospital database and an access control policy are created. Also, the relevant mappings between the hospital database and the Hospital Ontology are established by using the Ontop framework and finally, various queries are executed by using Ontop SPARQL to evaluate mappings and access rules.