A Survey on Access Control Models in Social Networks

Nowadays, online social networks have gained considerable popularity due to convenient and easy communication, social relationship with individuals with the same characteristics, anonymity, and no need to physical move. One of the most important issues in social networks is the security and privacy of users’ shared information. This large amount of personal information need appropriate security setting to be protected from unauthorized access and unwanted disclosure. In this paper existing access control models for social networks were examined, highlighting not only benefits and advantages, but also weaknesses of these models. Also, an evaluation was done against several criteria drawn from these models for assessing them.