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AI Agent Access Control Belongs at the Data Layer, Not the System Prompt

calendar_today September 8, 2026 person Patrick Spencer domain kiteworks

A system prompt telling your AI agent to show users only the data they’re cleared to see is not a security control. It’s a suggestion, written in English, sitting in the same context window as every other piece of text the agent processes, and suggestions get bypassed. That is not a provocative claim anymore.

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