1. A method for displaying data access privilege status for data in an enterprise, comprising: defining user groups offering common rights of access to a plurality of file servers, said user groups comprising ancestral user groups having members that are other user groups, and participant members of said other user groups having access rights that derive from said user groups and respective ancestral user groups thereof, said file servers being organized as a hierarchy of storage elements having ancestors; maintaining a user database of said user groups and said members, entries in said user database comprising identifiers of respective said ancestral user groups; maintaining a storage element permissions database containing only non-inherited access permissions for distinctive storage elements, and an inheritance indicator employing only partially identical permission profiles, that identifies other said distinctive storage elements that are ancestral thereto in said hierarchy thereby to reduce data storage requirements; consulting said user database to determine a user-oriented set of user groups offering respective said common rights of access to selected ones of said participant members; consulting said storage element permissions database to determine a storage element-oriented set of said user groups that provide said common rights of access to selected ones of said storage elements; and reporting members of said storage element-oriented set and said user-oriented set.