Methods, systems, and computer program products are described herein for the classification, tagging, and protection of data objects. Such techniques may be imposed on the data objects automatically regardless of whether the data objects are created/generated/interacted/downloaded/uploaded/accessed on the cloud-based environments and/or on-premises environments. The foregoing techniques are orchestrated from a centralized policy that is treated uniformly regardless of the data objects' environment. Once a data object is identified, it is classified based on multiple criteria and a tag is associated therewith. An enforcement action may be applied to the data objects based on a defined policy. The tag attached to the data object may be used to search for related audit logs that track accesses to the data object. By associating the tag and protection persistently, data object(s) are treated uniformly (i.e., in the same manner) regardless of what environment it is in.