Radiation protection, also known as radiological protection, is defined by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as "The protection of people from harmful effects of exposure to ionizing radiation, and the means for achieving this". Exposure can be from a source of radiation external to the human body or due to internal irradiation caused by the ingestion of radioactive contamination.

Ionizing radiation is widely used in industry and medicine, and can present a significant health hazard by causing microscopic damage to living tissue. There are two main categories of ionizing radiation health effects. At high exposures, it can cause "tissue" effects, also called "deterministic" effects due to the certainty of them happening, conventionally indicated by the unit gray and resulting in acute radiation syndrome. For low level exposures there can be statistically elevated risks of radiation-induced cancer, called "stochastic effects" due to the uncertainty of them happening, conventionally indicated by the unit sievert.

Fundamental to radiation protection is the avoidance or reduction of dose using the simple protective measures of time, distance and shielding. The duration of exposure should be limited to that necessary, the distance from the source of radiation should be maximised, and the source or the target shielded wherever possible. To measure personal dose uptake in occupational or emergency exposure, for external radiation personal dosimeters are used, and for internal dose due to ingestion of radioactive contamination, bioassay techniques are applied.

For radiation protection and dosimetry assessment the International Commission on Radiation Protection (ICRP) and International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) publish recommendations and data which is used to calculate the biological effects on the human body of certain levels of radiation, and thereby advise acceptable dose uptake limits.

The ICRP recommends, develops and maintains the International System of Radiological Protection, based on evaluation of the large body of scientific studies available to equate risk to received dose levels. The system's health objectives are "to manage and control exposures to ionising radiation so that deterministic effects are prevented, and the risks of stochastic effects are reduced to the extent reasonably achievable".

The ICRP's recommendations flow down to national and regional regulators, which have the opportunity to incorporate them into their own law; this process is shown in the accompanying block diagram. In most countries a national regulatory authority works towards ensuring a secure radiation environment in society by setting dose limitation requirements that are generally based on the recommendations of the ICRP.

The ICRP recognises planned, emergency, and existing exposure situations, as described below;

The ICRP uses the following overall principles for all controllable exposure situations.