ABAC Is the New RBAC—And Unity Catalog Has You Governed

As data environments scale and grow more complex, the old approach of assigning permissions by static roles starts to crack. Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) simply can’t keep pace with the demands of modern, decentralized, and highly dynamic data ecosystems. That’s why Databricks has introduced Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) into Unity Catalog—a shift that brings flexibility, precision, and scalability to data governance. With zeb’s expertise in implementing Databricks solutions, organizations gain the confidence that ABAC and Unity Catalog will be architected to align with their specific governance strategies and operational needs.

What is ABAC in Unity Catalog?

ABAC allows you to control access to data based on attributes of users, resources, and the environment. Instead of managing sprawling lists of roles and static grants, you define policies that evaluate conditions in real time: user roles from Entra ID or IAM, resource tags, geographic location, time of access, and more.

Unity Catalog already supports row-level filters and column masks through SQL UDFs. ABAC builds on this by letting you enforce access dynamically. For instance, you can allow “HR staff” to access salary data—unless they’re located in Dallas and the data is tagged “confidential.” In that case, a deny rule kicks in and overrides any allow policy. That’s a key distinction: in Unity Catalog’s ABAC model, deny rules always take precedence.

How it Works Under the Hood

ABAC policies are made up of rules that evaluate conditions against user and data attributes. Each rule includes a unique name, a target resource (catalog, schema, or table), a rule type (grant, deny, row filter, or column mask), a filter for the rule’s scope, and a Boolean condition that determines access.

These rules aren’t flat—there’s a data hierarchy to them that works top-down. Define a policy at the catalog level, and it trickles down through schemas and tables unless explicitly overridden. This mechanism keeps your policy management scalable, even across thousands of datasets.

The model supports a wide variety of attributes. Location-based policies can be enforced using user metadata from Entra ID or IAM. Tags—whether user-assigned or auto-generated (such as via PII detection)—add another layer of control. Even time can be used as a condition, making it easy to grant temporary access that automatically expires after a set duration.

Governance That Grows with You

ABAC gives data stewards and engineers the ability to enforce governance at scale. Rather than relying on hundreds of manual grants, you can define attribute-based policies that adapt to evolving org structures, regulatory requirements, and data classifications.

For example, GDPR and HIPAA compliance often requires regional data controls. ABAC enables this with region-aware policies that mask or restrict access based on user location. If your users are tagged by geography, access can be scoped automatically to maintain compliance without writing dozens of edge-case exceptions.

Better Discovery, Attribution, and Ownership

For engineers building and maintaining data platforms, ABAC improves not just security but usability. When users search for data, they only see what they’re authorized to access. That’s both safer and cleaner. And because tags play a central role, admins can track usage patterns— like analyzing access by cost center—through audit logs tied to ABAC rules.

ABAC also supports distributed ownership. Data producers can define the content, while policy authors independently set access rules. This separation of concerns removes bottlenecks and allows for more responsive governance.

Built for Real-World Complexity

Need to give an audit team access to customer data for just 7 days? No problem. Want to restrict access to sensitive fields unless users have both a specific role and an approved location? ABAC makes defining that kind of conditional accesses straightforward. Concerned about default privileges being too permissive? Deny rules let you lock down access explicitly— even if other rules would otherwise allow it.

This is governance designed for real-world complexity. And with zeb implementing Databricks solutions like Unity Catalog and ABAC, your organization can count on a governance model that’s not just powerful, but thoughtfully tailored to your unique environment—scalable, compliant, and ready for what’s next.