An approach is provided for printing policy-enabled electronic documents using locked printing. A printing device includes a user interface, a print process for processing print data and printing documents and a locked print process. When print data is received by a printing device, a determination is made whether an electronic document contained in the print data is a policy-enabled electronic document. If so, then the print data is treated as locked print data by being stored on the printing device and not immediately processed for printing. In response to both successfully verifying a user and a request to print the electronic document via a user interface at the printing device, a determination is made whether the user is authorized by a policy to print the electronic document. If so, then the print data is processed and the electronic document is printed at the printing device.