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How to secure access to data catalog and data assets

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Important

New Azure Data Catalog accounts can no longer be created.

For data catalog features, please use the Microsoft Purview service, which offers unified data governance for your entire data estate.

If you are already using Azure Data Catalog, you'll need to create a migration plan for your organization to move to Microsoft Purview by August 2025.

Important

This feature is available only in the standard edition of Azure Data Catalog.

Azure Data Catalog allows you to specify who can access the data catalog and what operations (register, annotate, take ownership) they can perform on metadata in the catalog.

Catalog users and permissions

To give a user or a group the access to a data catalog and set permissions:

  1. On the home page of your data catalog, select Settings on the toolbar.

    Settings button in the toolbar highlighted.

  2. In the settings page, expand the Catalog Users section.

    Catalog Users section is expanded, and the Add button is selected.

  3. Select Add.

  4. Enter the fully qualified user name or name of the security group in the Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) associated with the catalog. Use comma (`,’) as a separator if you're adding more than one user or group.

    Example user name and security groups added in the space, with a comma separating the two.

  5. Press ENTER or TAB out of the text box.

  6. Confirm that all permissions (Annotate, Register, and Take Ownership) are assigned to these users or groups by default. That is, the user or group can register data assets, annotate data assets, and take ownership of data assets.

    All permissions have been selected for each user.

  7. To give a user or group only the read access to the catalog, clear the annotate option for that user or group. Now the user or group can’t annotate data assets in the catalog, but they can view them.

  8. To deny a user or group from registering data assets, clear the register option for that user or group.

  9. To deny a user from taking ownership of a data asset, clear the take ownership option for that user or group.

  10. To delete a user/group from catalog users, select x for the user/group at the bottom of the list.

Users are shown at the bottom of the permissions list, and the x button beside one of the users has been highlighted.

Important

We recommend that you add security groups to catalog users rather than adding users directly and assign permissions. Then, add users to the security groups that match their roles and their required access to the catalog.

Special considerations

  • The permissions assigned to security groups are additive. For example: a user is in two groups. One group has annotate permissions and other group doesn't have annotate permissions. Then, the user has annotate permissions.
  • The permissions assigned explicitly to a user override the permissions assigned to groups to which the user belongs. For example: A user is in a group that has annotate permissions. If you explicitly add the user to catalog users and don't assign annotate permissions, then the user can’t annotate data assets. The explicit permission on the user overrides the group permissions.

Next steps