On many platforms, special memory operations are provided for simultaneous access; in such cases, typically simultaneous access using these special operations is safe, but simultaneous access using other memory operations is dangerous. Sometimes such special operations (which are safe for simultaneous access) are called "atomic" or "synchronization" operations, whereas the ordinary operations (which are unsafe for simultaneous access) are called "data" operations. This is probably why the term is "data" race; on many platforms, where there is a race condition involving only "synchronization" operations, such a race may be nondeterministic but otherwise safe; but a "data" race could lead to memory corruption or undefined behavior.