Oracle ACLs

Oracle Database provides classic database security such as row-level and column-level secure access by database users. It also provides fine-grained access control for table data and for resources in Oracle XML DB Repository, for secure access by Oracle Fusion users (who are not necessarily database users).
There are thus three dimensions: (1) which users can (2) perform which operations (3) on which data. We speak of :
1. principals,
2. privileges
3. objects.

Principals are users or roles. Principals and privileges (dimensions 1 and 2) are related in a declarative way by defining access control lists. These are then related to the third dimension, data, in various ways, either declaratively or procedurally. For example, you can protect an Oracle XML DB Repository resource or table data by using PL/SQL procedure DBMS_XDB.setACL to set its controlling ACL.