Patent attributes
An approach is disclosed that enforces restrictions to data in a filesystem based on metadata for a file including a name for an attribute, a type, and a location in the file for the type. A file specific metadata includes an owner, contact information, access rights including an owner consent-based access policy, users of the system who can access the file and the type of access allowed by the users based on a purpose for the access. The operating system (OS) enforces an access to attribute entries of the file based on the purpose and selected metadata in the associated metadata. The restrictions for file access are driven by the file structure metadata which identifies types of information, where in the file each type of information is located, and consent information which specifies what type of information is accessible to a requestor retrieving data for a specific purpose.