A granular encryption database management system characterized by hierarchical internal key management using asymmetric encryption of the user's keys, which are stored within a (local) encryption key table. Data is encrypted, decrypted, stored, and accessed from rows within the database (hereinafter ‘instances’). Instances are ordered in categories called Types. Instances are encrypted with Instance keys. All instances of the same type have their Instance keys generated by means of a hash function of their common Type's key, while Type keys are generated from the key of the higher category which is often the Master key of the whole system.