Understanding Data Security Diagrams and Their Role in Enterprise Architecture
The article explains how data security diagrams map which participants can access specific enterprise data, discusses best practices such as using focused participant‑centric or external‑access diagrams, presents example tables and UML/BPMN and Archimate visualizations, and highlights their role in compliance and trust management.
Simply put, the security and accessibility of enterprise data should not be regarded as assets. The purpose of a data security diagram is to describe which participants (individuals, organizations, or systems) can access which enterprise data. This relationship can be represented as a matrix between two objects or as a mapping. The diagram can also be used to demonstrate compliance with data privacy laws and other applicable regulations (HIPAA, SOX, etc.). It should also consider any trust impact of partners or other parties that may access company systems, such as outsourced situations where information is managed by others or even hosted in different countries.
Large diagrams are hard to read. It is recommended to create a data security relationship diagram for each business entity and/or each participant (usually a role). In particular, diagrams focused on participants and their tasks can provide adaptive links. Diagrams can also concentrate on external system access, i.e., the data that external participants can access.
Alternatively, a table can be created as shown in the example:
Links still need to be created because they can be used in any type of diagram.
UML/BPMN EAP Profile
External participant: participants outside the enterprise.
Internal participant: participants belonging to the enterprise.
Data flow: an activity element (e.g., actor, process) on one end and an element carrying data (entity, event, product) on the other. These flows can show "adaptability", indicating what access rights and permissions the activity element has over the data.
Archimate
This diagram shows who has the right to access which data and with what permissions.
Original source: https://www.togaf-modeling.org/models/data-architecture/data-security-diagrams.html
Article: http://jiagoushi.pro/togaf-modeling-data-security-diagrams
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