Grant reference on type

Question

What does GRANT REFERENCES ON TYPE::dbo.myType TO public exactly mean?

I found this statement together with every single user defined type we have. I wonder if this is useful or not. AFAIK this permission is required only for creation of new objects (e.g. a table or function) to reference the data type - so in case the regular database user will never create new database schema objects, does this kind of explicit permission make any sense?

Answer 1

According to BOL, the REFERENCES permission allows the following:

The REFERENCES permission on a table is needed to create a FOREIGN KEY constraint that references that table.

The REFERENCES permission is needed on an object to create a FUNCTION or VIEW with the WITH SCHEMABINDING clause that references that object.

There is no reason for a public user to have this permission when they are unable to CREATE or ALTER any other objects.