Authentication and Authorisation

The Founder Situation

A founder is clarifying who controls the product and how the company will respond when something goes wrong.

The immediate question is authentication and authorisation. The technical label matters only because it changes a product decision, a responsibility, or the evidence required before launch.

What Matters in Practice

Start with the product consequence, then choose the simplest technical treatment that protects it. A longer tool list is not a stronger plan.

For this decision, the useful standard is that access, ownership, recovery, and response responsibilities are explicit and can be exercised without one individual.

• Make the decision explicit: Use established identity mechanisms and enforce resource-level permissions on every protected backend operation.
• Ask what evidence would show that the chosen approach works.
• Name the person or provider responsible when the approach fails.
• Record the result in the security, ownership, and handover record.

A Proportionate Decision

Use established identity mechanisms and enforce resource-level permissions on every protected backend operation.

The principal risk is that valid login is treated as permission to access data belonging to another user or company. This does not require the most expensive possible solution. It requires the consequence to be understood and the control to match it.

1. Describe the user or business outcome that must be protected.
2. Identify the most credible failure and its consequence.
3. Compare the simplest adequate approach with one realistic alternative.
4. Set a review point for when the decision may need to change.

Strong Evidence and Weak Reassurance

Warning Signs

• Nobody can explain how authentication and authorisation changes a user or business outcome.
• The proposal does not address this risk: valid login is treated as permission to access data belonging to another user or company.
• The only evidence is a successful demonstration of the easiest path.
• The decision has no named owner, boundary, or review point.
• A provider-specific feature is being mistaken for a permanent product requirement.

Questions to Ask a Consultant

• What decision are we making about authentication and authorisation?
• Which user or business outcome does the recommendation protect?
• How have we reduced or accepted this risk: valid login is treated as permission to access data belonging to another user or company.
• What evidence can I review without relying on the original implementer?
• What is deliberately deferred, and when will it be reconsidered?
• Who owns the accounts, data, documentation, and recovery process?