Definition:

… who is authorized to access to the product (both functionality and data), under what circumstances that access is granted, and to which parts of the product access is allowed.

Volere+2012, p. 60


In the fields of physical security and information security, access control (AC) is the selective restriction of access to a place or other resource, while access management describes the process. The act of accessing may mean consuming, entering, or using. Permission to access a resource is called authorization.

Wikipedia: Access control