A Metadata-Driven Secure Data-Sharing Model for Controlled Access to Proprietary Information

Abstract

A metadata-driven secure data-sharing model is proposed for controlling access to proprietary information exchanged between internal enterprise sources and external collaborators. The framework was designed to show that secure sharing can be governed through identity-aware authorization, tags-based policy enforcement, protected file storage, and persistent auditing rather than through static permissions or vendor-specific platforms. The implemented system integrates an identity provider, a policy evaluation engine, a relational database for metadata and audit records, object storage for protected files, and an application layer that coordinates token validation, authorization queries, storage access, and request measurement. Evaluation was conducted in three stages: a controlled baseline, a moderate workload stage, and a larger workload stage. Across these stages, the framework maintained correct access-control behavior, prevented unauthorized proprietary downloads, and preserved complete audit capture for protected actions. The results support the feasibility of a vendor-independent middleware approach for deterministic, auditable, policy-directed control of sensitive document sharing.