Abstract: Computer apparatus for accessing by a user an electronic service provided by a remote service provider comprising a receiver for receiving an authorisation policy, wherein the authorisation policy defines access requirements to the electronic service; and a trusted device for determining the users authorisation to access the electronic service based upon the authorisation policy and at least one attribute associated with the user, wherein the trusted device is arranged to inhibit the user accessing the authorisation policy.

Abstract: An object oriented tool monitors the step-by-step progress of security administration within an electronic work flow to implement access control measures, and security administration policies that may include additional checks and balances, such as second party review, escalated authorization requirements, and trusted audit facilities. A security administration architecture for distributed electronic data processing systems preferably includes a checkpoint object that provides uniform characterization of milestone or transition states in administration activity, and which may be inherited by or refined to an administration activity object. A checkpoint object manager that is instantiated as a trusted third party object manages the state progression of checkpoint objects. As a result of checkpointing, checkpoint objects are resumed with their state advanced, reversed, or unchanged by the checkpoint object manager as appropriate.