ISO 27701 Audit — Privacy Information Management System
ISO 27001 extension for personal data management and privacy regulation compliance.
ISO 27701:2019 is not a standalone standard — it is an extension of ISO 27001 that adds specific controls for personal data management, for both data controllers and processors. This means adopting ISO 27701 without having ISO 27001 resolved is structurally unviable. What most organizations underestimate is the complexity of data flow mapping: listing databases is not enough — every processing activity, its legal basis, international transfers, retention periods, and data subject rights exercise mechanisms must be documented. The most common finding in privacy audits is the absence of Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIA) for high-risk processing, an explicit requirement of both GDPR (Art. 35) and the ISO standard. Organizations that complete this assessment before a regulatory inspection significantly reduce their exposure to sanctions.
Deliverables
Personal data flow mapping
Inventory of processing activities, legal bases and international transfers.
Privacy gap analysis
Assessment against ISO 27701 and applicable regulations.
Compliance plan
Roadmap to close regulatory and technical gaps.
Intervention Flow
Data mapping
Identification of personal data flows and processing activities.
Controls assessment
Review of technical-organizational privacy controls.
Report and action plan
Findings, regulatory gaps and compliance roadmap.
Technical Inquiries
No. ISO 27701 provides an auditable management framework that facilitates compliance with GDPR, LGPD, and other data protection regulations, but does not legally replace or substitute them. What it does is systematically structure compliance evidence: if a regulator requests proof of how your organization protects personal data, an ISO 27701 system in place presents processing records, documented DPIAs, retention policies, and evidence of technical controls in a coherent and auditable format. That traceability is the difference between responding to a regulator with ad hoc documents or with a verifiable management system.
Yes. ISO 27701 is an extension of ISO 27001 — it cannot exist without it. The standard adds privacy controls on top of the already established information security management system. If your organization does not have ISO 27001 in place, the assessment will evaluate both standards in parallel and propose an integrated roadmap covering security and privacy simultaneously, optimizing adoption effort.
Fernando Arrieta offers evaluation, assessment, and methodological guidance services for management systems. These activities are independent of the certification process, which is carried out exclusively by accredited certification bodies.