Patent ID: 7478244

Claim:
A method of controlling access to a database having information about a plurality of data providers comprising: an organizing step of organizing said information in one or more columns; a decision object determination step of classifying said information in said database in open information and secret information; said classifying based on identifying one or more columns of said information as key columns; an output request acquisition step of obtaining an output request for output of information generated by accessing the database; a single-term output permission step of determining whether or not to output a column of said information responsive to whether or not access to said information satisfies one or more conditions determined by a single-term privacy policy; a plural-term output permission step of prohibiting output of information generated by combining the open information and the secret information in output information requested to be output according to the output request, and permitting output of information generated by using the secret information without using the open information; said plural-term output permission step responsive to two or more columns of said information; a sensitivity computation step for calculating sensitivity of said open information and said secret information, wherein said plural-term output authorization section prohibits output of the information if each of the sensitivity of the secret information and the sensitivity of the open information is higher that a predetermined reference; a reorganizing step for reorganizing said open information from said information in a sequence of said plurality of data providers different from a sequence of said plurality of data providers in which said open information is arranged on a basis of secret information from said information, wherein said plural-term output authorization section prohibits output of the information generated by rearranging a plurality of items of the open information on the basis of secret information corresponding to the plurality of items of the open information; and an output step of: selectively outputting information permitted to be output in the single-term output permission step, if said information is also permitted to be output in the plural-term permission step; and not outputting said information permitted to be output in the single-term output permission step, if said information is not permitted to be output in the plural-term permission step.