---
title: "Policy Authorization Agent"
slug: "policy-authorization-agent-user"
status: "update"
updated: 2025-11-23T09:26:21Z
published: 2025-11-23T09:26:21Z
canonical: "docs.plainid.io/policy-authorization-agent-user"
---

> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.plainid.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Policy Authorization Agent

#### Overview

Once you create a PAA (see [Managing Policy Authorization Agents](/docs/administration-portal#managing-paas)), the PAA is listed on the Policy Authorization Agent screen. Each PAA is represented by a Policy Authorization Agent Card.

When an organization is maintaining multiple Environments (for example, Staging and Production), it is recommended that a PAA be configured for each Environment, each with its own connection strings.

In this scenario, the decision making workflow can involve (for example):

- An Application requesting an authorization decision from the local PDP.
- If Identity information is required, the PDP contacts the local PIP to retrieve Identity data from the local data sources.
- The PIP data is returned to the PDP, which sends the decision back to the Application.

All communication is managed locally, increasing performance and **security**, **protecting sensitive information**, and **decreasing latency**.

![PAA Graphic.png](https://cdn.document360.io/726c7002-05a9-480e-b986-42c9e8824acd/Images/Documentation/Group%207403.png)

*To learn more about installing and deploying PAAs, [click here](/v1/docs/deployment-1).*