What is Role-Based Access Control?

What is Role-Based Access Control?

When you own a business, security is naturally an important concern. If you’re not sure who has access to certain systems or locations within your company, it’s easy to feel worried and out of control.

Fortunately, that’s where role-based access control (RBAC) can help. Read on to learn how this system can help you to protect company data and feel confident about your access control.

What is role-based access control?

Put simply, role-based access control is a system for providing permissions to individuals. These permissions authorise them to access certain locations, data and systems within your business. Your business can use this to regulate exactly what staff members, contractors and guests have access to.

Different departments will need to have access to different locations and systems. Role-based access control can also be tiered, so managers have a different level of access compared to their team.

Here are some common examples of role-based access control in action:

  • IT rooms and systems are accessible only to the IT teams for security purposes.
  • Guests or contractors are provided with keycards to allow them to access certain parts of a company property for a set period of time.
  • Areas with health and safety concerns, such as warehouses and rooms with hazardous substances, can be made accessible only to qualified staff members.
  • Rooms with sensitive data can be made accessible only to staff authorised to view or use the data.

How does role-based access control benefit your business?

There are many benefits to implementing role-based access control across your business. These include:

Monitoring and security

Role-based access control can drastically improve your security, as it provides an audit trail of which rooms individual staff members have been granted or denied access to, and at what times. This can be used alongside video surveillance to prevent data breaches or other security issues – or provide vital evidence if a breach occurs.

Data protection compliance

With robust restrictions on access to locations and data, your business is more likely to meet industry regulations on data protection, among other standards.

Streamlines administration

Rather than assigning each individual’s permissions one-by-one, role-based access control means you can group permissions into defined group “roles”. Examples of these could include “reception staff” or “building contractors”. As permissions often need to be changed for entire departments or groups, this saves adminstrative staff huge amounts of unneccesary work.

How to implement role-based access control

So, how should you implement this access control system? There are three major steps to take…

  • Create a spreadsheet – First, you should create a spreadsheet of every location that requires authorisation, along with a sheet detailing every individual and group within the organisation and their level of required access.
  • Develop a clear policy – You’ll also need to develop a consistent policy for how you’ll provide access going forward, so there’s no confusion among employees.
  • Renew and update – Businesses are constantly developing, and your access control should too. Make sure your policy accounts for changes, for example, to your workforce or commercial security

Secure your business with role-based access control

If you’d like to enhance security and streamline access control at your business, Selectron is here to help. Our award-winning team offers scalable security solutions for your commercial properties across Bermuda – from video surveillance to intruder alarms.

Ready to get started? Contact our helpful team today.


At Selectron our solutions help you meet the increased challenges of today’s security and surveillance, enabling you to improve safety by reducing and preventing security breaches and accidents. Find out more about us >>

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.