ISO 27001 Annex A 5.31: Legal, statutory, regulatory and contractual requirements

What auditors look for

Auditors check that 5.31 is either justified as not applicable in your Statement of Applicability or implemented and working. Typical evidence includes:

• Register of legal and contractual requirements
• Owner for each requirement
• Records of regulatory change reviews

How to implement 5.31 in practice

1. Include data protection, sector rules and customer contracts
2. Review the register at least yearly
3. Map requirements to controls
4. Name an owner for 5.31, decide how often it runs and file evidence each time, so the control is audit-ready all year.

How 5.31 supports GDPR

This control helps demonstrate GDPR Art. 5, 24. Map it once in your control matrix so the same evidence supports both ISO 27001 and GDPR accountability. See the GDPR compliance checklist.

Recording 5.31 in the Statement of Applicability

List 5.31 with whether it applies, the reason (usually the risks it treats or a legal or contractual requirement), its implementation status and where the evidence lives. If you exclude it, explain why none of your risks or obligations require it.

Free resources

• GDPR compliance checklist for security teams
• ISO 27001 and GDPR readiness assessment
• 10 steps to implement ISO 27001
• Remote ISO 27001 consultant

More organizational controls

• 5.27 Learning from information security incidents
• 5.28 Collection of evidence
• 5.29 Information security during disruption
• 5.30 ICT readiness for business continuity
• 5.32 Intellectual property rights
• 5.33 Protection of records
• 5.34 Privacy and protection of PII
• 5.35 Independent review of information security