--- title: Introduction to authorization author: rick-anderson description: This document provides a basic explanation of authorization and explains how authorization relates to ASP.NET Core. ms.author: riande manager: wpickett ms.date: 10/14/2016 ms.topic: article ms.technology: aspnet ms.prod: asp.net-core uid: security/authorization/introduction --- # Introduction Authorization refers to the process that determines what a user is able to do. For example, an administrative user is allowed to create a document library, add documents, edit documents, and delete them. A non-administrative user working with the library is only authorized to read the documents. Authorization is orthogonal and independent from authentication, which is the process of ascertaining who a user is. Authentication may create one or more identities for the current user. ## Authorization Types ASP.NET Core authorization provides a simple declarative [role](roles.md) and a [rich policy based](policies.md) model. Authorization is expressed in requirements, and handlers evaluate a user's claims against requirements. Imperative checks can be based on simple policies or policies which evaluate both the user identity and properties of the resource that the user is attempting to access. ## Namespaces Authorization components, including the `AuthorizeAttribute` and `AllowAnonymousAttribute` attributes are found in the `Microsoft.AspNetCore.Authorization` namespace.