A method of restricting data access based on a user's role within an organization, rather than assigning permissions to individual users.
In role-based access control (RBAC), permissions are assigned to roles (such as "analyst", "editor", "administrator"), and users are assigned to roles. When a user's role changes, their access changes automatically. This is more manageable than individual permissions, especially in large organizations with many users and datasets.
RBAC implements the principle of least privilege: each role has only the permissions needed for its responsibilities. An analyst role might have read-only access to datasets; an editor role might have read and write access; an administrator role might have full control.
Example: A data portal uses RBAC with three roles: Viewer (can search and download public datasets), Publisher (can upload and manage their own datasets), and Administrator (can manage all datasets and users). When a new staff member joins the data team, they are assigned the Publisher role — they immediately have the right permissions without any individual configuration.