Techniques for managing access privileges in a data processing system include obtaining a plurality of rules for granting and/or denying privileges to a first actor to perform at least one action on a first instance of a first data entity of data entities; identifying, from among attributes of the first data entity, a first attribute whose values are used by one or more of the plurality of rules; obtaining, from a user or from at least one data store, a first value of the first attribute; identifying, using the first value and from among the plurality of rules, a first rule that depends on the first value; generating a graphical user interface (GUI) including a visual rendering of at least some of the plurality of rules, the visual rendering emphasizing the first rule identified using the first value of the first attribute; and displaying the generated GUI to the user.