Why Owner-Controlled Access Changes Everything

For decades, we’ve accepted a fundamental assumption about enterprise data security: IT departments must control access. Every request goes through administrators. Every permission change requires tickets. Every collaboration needs approval from someone who has never touched the investigation. The challenges with Row Level Security are too many to count:

1. Risk of data leakage from configuration errors.
2. Challenges in maintaining complex policies.
3. Potential for performance degradataion.
4. Vulnerability to attacks like side-channel attacks.
5. Increase staff required to maintain.

This model is broken.

The Traditional Problem

Picture this scenario: You’re a crybercimes investigator. You’ve just discovered a connection between two seemingly unrelated cases—one being investigated by your team in New York, another by a team in Washington, D.C. To collaborate, you need to:

1. File an access request ticket
2. Wait for IT approval (2-5 business days)
3. Explain to someone unfamiliar with the investigation why you need access
4. Hope they grant the right permissions
5. Repeat this process for every team member who needs access

By the time you get access, the trail has gone cold. The moment of discovery—when connections are clearest—has passed.

The Revolutionary Alternative

What if the people doing the work controlled access to their work?

This isn’t chaos. It’s logic. Who better to decide who should see investigative data than the investigators themselves? They understand:

• The sensitivity of the information
• The expertise required to interpret it
• The urgency of collaboration needs
• The compliance requirements specific to their case

How Owner-Controlled Access Works

In the Ingestigate model, every investigation has an owner—typically the lead investigator or team manager. This owner can:

Grant Instant Access

When a colleague needs to see your investigation, you approve it immediately. No tickets. No waiting. The person can be added to your team on the investigation either permanently or for a limited time period. Alternatively, you can choose to deliver the appropriate information to them through other channels. Or you can decide that the requesting party is not allowed to see the information they are seeking to access.

Set Granular Permissions

Not everyone needs full access. Grant read-only for reviewers, edit access for collaborators, or full access for co-investigators. You decide based on actual needs, not organizational charts.

Revoke When Needed

When someone leaves the team or no longer needs access, remove their access instantly. No orphaned permissions lingering in the system for months.

The “Search Everything” Revolution

Here’s where it gets truly transformative: In Ingestigate, everyone can see that investigations exist. They can see:

• Investigation names
• Document counts
• File types
• Creation dates
• Owner information

But not the actual content—unless the owner grants access.

This visibility changes everything. Now investigators can:

• Discover related investigations they didn’t know existed
• Identify potential connections across departments
• Request access to relevant data immediately
• Build a complete picture of organizational knowledge

Real-World Impact

Scenario 1: Cross-Border Financial Crime

A Washington D.C. team investigating cryptocurrency fraud sees that a New York team has an investigation involving the same wallet addresses. They request access, get approval within minutes, and uncover a international money laundering ring.

Traditional model: Would never have known the other investigation existed.

Scenario 2: Internal Corporate Investigation

HR is investigating harassment complaints. They discover Legal has a related investigation into contract violations by the same individual. They collaborate instantly, building a stronger case.

Traditional model: Parallel investigations, missed connections, incomplete picture.

Scenario 3: Research Acceleration

A biotech lab is validating clinical trial results. Scientists in one region can see a complementary investigation in another facility. They request access, compare instrument logs, and reconcile findings before the next review meeting.

Traditional model: Each lab re-runs experiments because they can’t see prior work.

Scenario 4: Investment Diligence

A real estate firm is analyzing dozens of property packets. The acquisitions lead spots that a colleague is already processing similar files in another market. Owner-controlled access lets the team share underwriting notes instantly while keeping sensitive investor data compartmentalized.

Traditional model: Duplicate diligence, missed deal timelines, frustrated investors.

Security Without Sacrifice

“But what about security?” skeptics ask. Owner-controlled access is actually more secure:

Better Decisions

Owners understand their data’s sensitivity. They make better access decisions than distant administrators following generic policies.

Faster Revocation

When access is no longer needed, owners revoke it immediately. They know when team members leave or cases close.

Clear Accountability

Every owner is accountable for their access decisions. This creates a culture of responsibility, not bureaucratic diffusion.

The Technical Implementation

We built this on a modern policy-based authorization engine used by major cloud providers. Key features:

• 3ms authorization decisions: Fast enough for real-time collaboration
• Policy-based controls: Organizations can still set boundaries
• Delegated administration: Owners control access within organizational rules
• Complete audit logging: Every decision tracked and searchable

Breaking the IT Bottleneck

IT departments aren’t the enemy. They’re overworked, understaffed, and asked to make decisions about data they don’t understand. Owner-controlled access frees them to focus on infrastructure, security, and platform management—not playing gatekeeper to every investigation file.

The Trust Factor

Owner-controlled access requires trust. Trust that investigators will make good decisions. Trust that they understand security implications. Trust that they’ll follow compliance requirements.

But here’s the thing: We already trust them with the investigations themselves. If we trust someone to investigate financial crimes, insider threats, or legal violations, why don’t we trust them to control access to their findings?

The Collaboration Multiplier

When investigators control access, collaboration explodes. Teams that never knew about each other’s work suddenly connect. Patterns invisible to siloed groups become obvious. The collective intelligence of the organization activates—whether you’re tracking cases, validating research, or evaluating an investment.

The Bottom Line

Traditional IT-controlled access was designed for a different era—when data lived in filing cabinets and access meant physical keys. In the digital age, where investigations span petabytes and seconds matter, we need a new model.

Owner-controlled access isn’t just better. It’s inevitable. The question isn’t whether to adopt it, but how quickly you can transform your investigations by putting control where it belongs: with the people doing the work.

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Ready to transform how your organization handles investigation access? Start your free trial or contact our team to learn more about owner-controlled access in Ingestigate.