One embodiment provides a system that facilitates schematized access control in a content centric network. During operation, the system generates, by a content producing device, a secret key for a user based on a schema, wherein the schema is a regular expression which corresponds to one or more names and allows a user access to content associated with the names, wherein a name is a hierarchically structured variable length identifier that includes contiguous name components ordered from a most general level to a most specific level. The system receives an interest with a name that corresponds to the schema. The system encrypts a payload of a responsive content object based on the interest name. The system transmits the responsive content object with the encrypted payload to the user, which allows the user to decrypt the encrypted payload with the secret key.