Airbnb’s Approach to Access Management at Scale

Airbnb implements a novel software solution to maintain the principle of least privilege, enabling its large team of employees, contractors, and call center agents to perform their jobs effectively and securely.

The homegrown/vendor solution combination used previously lacked a unifying architecture that prevented scalability. Airbnb built a centralized self-serve access control platform with a permission store that manages access control, eliminates unnecessary access, enforces automatic permission expiration, and maintains compliance with ever-increasing privacy regulations.

By implementing this system, Airbnb has made significant strides in keeping its community's data safe.