Glossary
Separation of Privilege
Separation of privilege holds that access to something consequential should depend on satisfying more than one independent condition, rather than any single one being sufficient on its own. This is the general principle underneath two more specific practices already familiar in other contexts: split knowledge divides a secret so no one person holds the whole thing, and dual control requires two separate parties to both act before a consequential operation proceeds. Both are separation of privilege applied in a particular way — the principle is the umbrella; the practices are specific instantiations of it.
The underlying logic is the same across every instance: a single point of compromise, whether a person, a credential, or a condition, shouldn't be sufficient by itself to grant access to something that genuinely matters. Recognizing this as one general principle, rather than a collection of unrelated specific practices, makes it easier to ask the right question when designing protection for a new, consequential capability: what are the independent conditions, and is any single one of them alone actually sufficient today.