Systems and methods are described for determining data usage behavior in a database system. The systems and methods can include receiving, from one or more applications, a plurality of SQL queries, storing the received SQL queries, receiving one or more characteristics, each characteristic relating to one or more respective fields, determining one or more data usage categories, wherein a data usage category has one or more characteristics values corresponding to one or more stored field values of the one or more respective fields, comparing the data selection condition of at least one stored SQL query with the determined one or more data usage categories, and incrementing a data usage counter associated with a identified data usage category if the data selection condition of the at least one stored SQL query indicates at least one query access to stored data including field values in accordance with the identified data usage category.