Federated Document Redaction with Real-Time Role-Based Access
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing systems lack the ability to efficiently and flexibly apply redaction policies across diverse document repositories, requiring costly and time-consuming processing of documents to enforce access controls based on user roles and document content.
Innovation Solution
A federated redaction system that applies multi-layer redaction policies to documents across various repositories in real-time, using pattern matching and role-based access controls, allowing instantaneous policy changes without additional storage or processor capacity.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional document access control systems are used to enforce redaction policies across multiple repositories, then security and access control are maintained, but processing time and computational resources increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-processes documents to extract metadata and classify them into document classes before they need to be accessed. This preliminary classification creates an index that enables rapid retrieval and redaction policy application, eliminating the need for time-consuming full document analysis at access time.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a document class classification system as an intermediary layer between the document repository and the redaction policy enforcement mechanism. This classification intermediary enables the system to quickly determine which redaction policies apply to which documents without analyzing the full content of each document, significantly reducing processing time while maintaining security.
2Adaptability or versatility
If redaction policies are applied to documents in real-time across multiple repositories, then access control flexibility is improved, but computational overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs document classification and metadata extraction in advance, creating a structured index that captures essential document characteristics. This pre-processing enables real-time policy flexibility without requiring computationally intensive analysis at the moment of document access, as the classification framework is already in place.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the parameter of document representation from full content to classified metadata attributes. By transforming documents into classified categories with associated metadata, the system enables flexible policy application based on document class and metadata rather than analyzing entire document contents, significantly reducing computational overhead.
3Measurement precision
If comprehensive document analysis is performed to enforce access controls based on user roles and document content, then access control precision is improved, but processing speed decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and separates the essential classification metadata from the full document content. This extraction creates a lightweight index that retains the necessary information for precise access control decisions without requiring the system to load or analyze the complete document, thereby maintaining precision while improving retrieval speed.
Solution Approach 2:
The document class classification acts as an intermediary that bridges the gap between comprehensive content analysis and rapid retrieval. The classification metadata serves as a proxy that enables precise access control decisions to be made based on document class and metadata attributes rather than full content analysis, achieving both precision and speed.
Data Source
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AI summary
Provided are methods and systems for federated redaction of select content in documents stored across multiple repositories. With the presently disclosed technology, multi-layer redaction policies can be defined in either regular expression or with pattern matching. The redaction policies are associated with one or more document classes, and applied to the associated documents in substantially real-time. Further, document governance policies can be defined such that users of certain roles may view certain content in an unredacted form, despite the presence of a redaction policy for the document.