How to Demonstrate Compliance With GDPR Article 33

Technical Commentary

As well as thoroughly documenting all events surrounding a breach, organisations need to consider six governing factors when acting upon a data breach:

1. The definition of a breach – ‘a breach of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data transmitted, stored or otherwise processed’.
2. Maintaining acute awareness of a breach and obtaining a ‘reasonable degree of scrutiny’ when a suspected breach has occurred.
3. Being aware of the risks to individual freedoms that a data breach may cause, and how likely these risks present themselves as.
4. The severity of the risk, including.
• The risk category.
• The amount of data affected and the size of the breach.
• How they are able to identify any affected individuals.
• How serious the breach is in terms of tangible consequences to any individuals affected by it (and how vulnerable they are).
• The nature of the organisation’s business, and whether that constitutes a higher risk (e.g. financial data).
5. Where possible, the need to notify any governing authorities within 72 hours.
6. The need to provide a valid reason for contacting the authorities after 72 hours has elapsed, if this occurs.

When notifying the supervisory authority organisations need to:

• Describe the nature of the breach.
• Designate a point of contact.
• Outline the likelihood of any consequences.
• Describe any actions taken in response to the breach.
• Provide any additional details that are relevant to the breach.

ISO 27701 Clause 6.13.1.1 (Responsibilities and Procedures) and EU GDPR Articles 34 (1), 34 (2), 34 (3)(a), 34 (3)(b), 34 (3)(c) and 34 (4)

In order to create a cohesive, highly functioning incident management policy that safeguards the availability and integrity of privacy information during critical incidents, organisations should:

1. Adhere to a method for reporting privacy information security events.
2. Establish a series of processes that manage privacy information security-related incidents across the business, including:
• Administration.
• Documentation.
• Detection.
• Triage.
• Prioritisation.
• Analysis.
• Communication.
3. Draft an incident response procedure that enables the organisation to assess, respond to and learn from incidents.
4. Ensure that incidents are managed by trained and competent personnel who benefit from ongoing workplace training and certification programmes

Staff involved in privacy information security incidents should understand:

• The time it should take to resolve an incident.
• Any potential consequences.
• The severity of the incident.

When dealing with privacy information security events, staff should:

1. Assess events in accordance with a strict criteria that validates them as an approved incidents.
2. Categorise privacy information security events into 5 sub-topics:
• Monitoring (see ISO 27002 Controls 8.15 and 8.16).
• Detection (see ISO 27002 Control 8.16).
• Classification (see ISO 27002 Control 5.25).
• Analysis.
• Reporting (see ISO 27002 Control 6.8).
3. When resolving privacy information security incidents, organisations should:
• Response and escalate issues (see ISO 27002 Control 5.26) in accordance with the type of incident.
• Activate crisis management and business continuity plans.
• Affect a managed recovery from an incident that mitigates operational and/or financial damage.
• Ensure thorough communication of incident-related events to all relevant personnel.
4. Engage in collaborative working (see ISO 27002 Controls 5.5 and 5.6).
5. Log all incident managed-based activities.
6. Be responsible for the handling of incident-related evidence (see ISO 27002 Control 5.28).
7. Undertake a thorough root cause analysis, to minimise the risk of the incident happening again, including suggested amendments to any processes.

Reporting activities should be centred around 4 key areas:

• Actions that need to be taken once an information security event occurs.
• Incident forms that record information throughout an incident.
• End-to-end feedback processes to all relevant personnel.
• Incident reports that detail what’s occurred once an incident has been resolved.

Supporting ISO 27002 Controls

• ISO 27002 5.25
• ISO 27002 5.26
• ISO 27002 5.5
• ISO 27002 5.6
• ISO 27002 6.8
• ISO 27002 8.15
• ISO 27002 8.16

ISO 27701 Clause 6.13.1.5 (Response to Information Security Incidents) and EU GDPR Articles 34 (1) and 34 (2)

Organisations should ensure that privacy information security incidents are dealt with by a dedicated technical team with the skills and resources to affect a prompt resolution (see ISO 27002 Control 5.24).

Organisations should:

• contain any privacy-related threats arising from the original issue.
• collect a body of evidence throughout the resolution process.
• include escalation, BUDR activities and continuity planning in any resolution efforts (see ISO 27002 Controls 5.29 and 5.30).
• log all incident-related activity.
• ensure that staff operate on a “need to know” basis when dealing with privacy information incidents.
• be continually mindful of an their responsibilities to their customers and external organisations, when communicating privacy information incidents and data breaches.
• close incidents to a rigid set of resolution criteria.
• undertake forensic analysis (see ISO 27002 Control 5.28), as and when required.
• seek to establish the underlying cause of an incident, once it’s been resolved (see ISO 27002 Control 5.27).
• take remedial action on any associated processes, controls, policies and procedures, to bolster organisational privacy protection once an incident has been resolved.

Supporting ISO 27002 Controls

• ISO 27002 5.24
• ISO 27002 5.27
• ISO 27002 5.28
• ISO 27002 5.29
• ISO 27002 5.30

Index of Linked EU GDPR Articles and ISO 27701 Clauses

How ISMS.online Helps

A breach of GDPR can result in significant fines, making it one of the world’s toughest privacy and security regulations. As a result, it implies that organisations must protect personal data to a ‘reasonable’ extent.

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