A facility for performing an access control check as an integral component of an operating system and utilizing a centralized policy store is provided. The facility executes as an integral part of an operating system executing on a computer and receives an authorization query to determine whether a principal has authorization to access a resource. The facility applies a policy maintained in a centralized policy store that is applicable to the principal to determine whether authorization exists to access the resource. If authorization does not exist, the facility denies the authorization query and records an indication of the denial of the authorization in an audit log. The facility may trigger events based on the auditing of authorization queries. The facility may also record an indication of authorization to access the resource in the audit log. The facility may additionally determine whether the authorization query is a request for authorization to perform an inherently dangerous operation, and record an indication of an authorization to perform the inherently dangerous operation in the audit log.