topic Lacking support for column-level select grants or attribute-based access control in Machine Learning

Lacking support for column-level select grants or attribute-based access control

Spencer_Kent — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 04:39:06 GMT

In the Unity Catalog launch and its accompanying blog post, one of the primary selling points was a set of granular access control features that would at least partially eliminate the need to create a multitude of separate table views and the attendant complexity of managing this for a large set of users.

Beyond column-specific select grants:

GRANT SELECT(date, country) ON iot_events TO marketing

The launch also advertised a model for "attributed-based access control":

ALTER TABLE iot_events ADD ATTRIBUTE pii ON email
ALTER TABLE users ADD ATTRIBUTE pii ON phone
 
GRANT SELECT ON DATABASE iot_data
  HAVING ATTRIBUTE NOT IN (pii)
  TO product_managers

I can find no mention of these features in the Databricks documentation, where the only section on column-level permissions within the Unity Catalog section suggests we use old-school SQL views to achieve column-level permissions—exactly the kind of thing that Unity Catalog claimed to solve.

My own attempts to use these features in a Databricks workspace suggest that they are not yet available (even column-specific select grants!).

Am I missing something here? Is there a method for doing column-specific access control that doesn't require generating a new view?

Re: Lacking support for column-level select grants or attribute-based access control

mathan_pillai — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 18:53:23 GMT

Column-specific access without dynamic views is currently in private preview. You can work with Databricks accounts team to sign up for a private preview to get an early access. Once this is in GA, it will be generally available. Hope it clarifies.

Re: Lacking support for column-level select grants or attribute-based access control

Spencer_Kent — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 05:08:30 GMT

Simply amazing that 2 years on from the initial announcement, this feature is not available. You released Unity Catalog missing one of it's most-hyped features.

Re: Lacking support for column-level select grants or attribute-based access control

at-khatri — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 11:28:04 GMT

is this feature still in private preview?

Re: Lacking support for column-level select grants or attribute-based access control

KaushalVachhani — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 14:32:39 GMT

@at-khatri , Yes, Databricks has row-level filtering and column masking functionalities available, released last year.

https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/data-governance/unity-catalog/filters-and-masks/

Re: Lacking support for column-level select grants or attribute-based access control

Charuvil — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 14:38:37 GMT

@at-khatri Databricks ABAC is in Public Preview now
https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/data-governance/unity-catalog/abac/