An approach is provided for providing access control to shared data based on a trust level. A method comprising, encrypting, at a first device, data with public attribute keys associated with attributes according to an attribute-based encryption (ABE) scheme, wherein the attributes comprising at least one trust level related attribute representing an access condition for the data based on a trust level; storing the encrypted data into a data center, determining the eligibility of a user of a second device by checking whether a trust level of the user of the second device satisfies the access condition; and issuing to the second device, secret attribute keys associated with attributes and personalized for the user of the second device for decrypting the encrypted data, when the user of the second device is eligible.