Stork Delivery
The access review hiding in your AI project
Connecting an assistant to company information is a good time to examine access rules that have accumulated quietly over the years.
The problem: an AI connector can expose neglected access decisions
A document-search pilot begins with a simple request: connect the shared drive. During preparation, the team discovers folders available to former project members, customer files mixed into general working areas, and documents whose owners are unclear.
The assistant did not create those access problems. It can make their consequences easier to encounter.
Treat the connection work as a chance to review the boundaries before making information more searchable.
A practical approach
Start with the proposed audience
List who will use the application and the information they need for its defined task. Compare that requirement with the access they currently have.
Broad existing access is not automatically evidence that all of it is appropriate. An old group membership may have remained because nobody had a reason to revisit it.
Ask the relevant information owners to confirm the intended boundary. Keep that decision separate from the technical question of whether a connector can reach the folder.
Review service accounts too
The account used to ingest data may have different access from an individual user. Decide how the application will avoid exposing everything that the connector can read to everyone who can use the assistant.
Use the narrowest practical access for the ingestion job and preserve the information needed to enforce user-level restrictions during retrieval.
Check where copied data is stored, who can inspect it, and how it is removed. The search index is another place where company information now exists.
Exercise a real access change
Choose a safe test account and remove access to a test document or project. Observe how quickly the assistant stops returning it.
Check document titles, snippets, citations, cached answers, and previously created exports. Some records may need their own retention and access rules rather than disappearing automatically.
Document the actual behavior. “Permissions are synchronized” is too vague to explain a delay or an exception during an incident.
Leave an ownership process behind
Assign responsibility for reviewing access when someone joins, changes roles, or leaves. Include project closure and customer-account changes if those affect authorization.
The AI application should fit that process rather than become a separate island of permissions.
A smaller, well-governed initial collection can be more useful than immediate access to every file. It gives the business a controlled place to learn how people use the assistant while the broader information estate is improved.
The result: an approved audience and a tested access lifecycle
For one proposed collection, obtain the information owner's decision on who should have access and compare it with current permissions. Correct the gaps, then exercise a safe revocation test through ingestion, retrieval, and cached results. Record the observed delay and any separately governed copies. Expand the collection only when someone owns the ongoing access review and can explain its limits.