Protecting inappropriate release of data from realistic databases

In databases that are used for internal operations the data are not organized according to external access criteria. When collaboration with external customers is required the common tools of authentication, authorization, and secure transmission are inadequate to protect against release of inappropriate data. The approach used in the TIHI/SAW projects at Stanford adds a release filter. Such a release filter can be awkward and costly. By driving the filtering primitives through simple rules we allow a security officer to manage the institution policy and balance manual effort and complexity. A byproduct of the approach is a lowered dependence on perfect data management