Data driven role based security is provided. At login, the system queries for a data context in connection with access to computing objects of a computing system. When a request for access to computing objects is received by the computing system, one or more control expressions specified for the computing object being accessed are evaluated. The evaluation of the control expressions may reference the user context or the data context previously established, and returns a set of effective permissions. Access to the computing object is then granted if the set of permissions includes an appropriate permission for the request for access.