One or more labels are associated with a data object. One or more policies are associated with each of the labels. Based on the labels associated with the data objects, the associated policies are dispatched to policy decision engines to take one or more actions to enforce the policy. The labels, and the policies associated with the labels, are chosen by a business administrator within an enterprise, and are implemented by an Information Technology (IT) administrator. The association between labels and polices allows the policy to be applied to an object to be decoupled from the characterization of the nature of the object, or its purpose and/or role within an enterprise, business purpose and/or context of the object. Examples of policies are: access, backup, retention, isolation, audit, etc.