OGSA-DAI data resource authorization is based around the notion of an OGSA-DAI security context that contains information, for example the caller's distinguished name, about some client. Security contexts are constructed typically at an OGSA-DAI presentation layer. The information they can contain is presentation layer or application specific.

The OGSA-DAI framework is aware of security contexts - these are a property of invocations of OGSA-DAI operations - but makes no assumptions as to their content. Such assumptions can be restricted to application-specific authorization components (such as login providers).

A security context must implement the interface:

uk.org.ogsadai.authorization.SecurityContext

This interface provides no methods.. It is simply a marker interface to mark an class as being a security context.