In a document information processing apparatus handling a large amount of documents, when a document is registered, retrieval data for document retrieval is created for each registered document. Moreover, for each registered document, there is produced an access control table in which information indicating accessibility of groups including users as document retrievers for the document is registered. When a user desires to retrieve a document, accessibility of the user as the retriever is determined in accordance with the access control table for documents retrieved with retrieval data.