A method and system for accessing stored data includes receiving a request to access data stored in a data storage unit. The request requires one or more data operations to be performed by a system having access to the stored data. Responsive to the data request, one or more locks are derived and assigned to one or more of the data operations. Each of the locks control invocation of the data operations to which the respective lock is assigned. The deriving is based in part on (i) user context data obtained from a user issuing the request and (ii) data context comprising one or more attributes of the request. Each of the one or more locks is unlocked and the one or more data operations are invoked after the one or more locks are unlocked.