The database entries for the authorization manager checked with `checkAccess`, see also [RBAC from Yii 1](http://www.yiiframework.com/doc/guide/1.1/en/topics.auth#role-based-access-control).
As an example, `yii-rights` was able to generate these items automatically (if they followed a convention) - this is a really helpful feature, when you install a new extension and want to give permissions to your users.