What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on PS-01 Physical Security and Environmental Control Requirements?

Signed physical and environmental security concept listing the eight hazard classes; Site level protection requirement analysis for each data centre; Contractual security requirement annex imposed on third party landlords; Record of the technology standards or building codes cited as the design basis.

What is the most common gap auditors find on PS-01?

Concept written once at build time and never revisited after new sites were added

BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue) · C5: Physical Security

`PS-01` Physical Security and Environmental Control Requirements

Derive documented physical and environmental security requirements for all premises and data centres from risk assessment and identified protection needs, addressing planning faults, intrusion, surveillance, climate control, fire, water, power and ventilation, including requirements imposed on third party site operators.

Source: BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue), PS-01. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue) in the compliance library.

The edition of the catalogue is not stamped here; check the edition your attestation is issued against.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Site level protection requirement analysis for each data centre · Physical access / facilities
Record of the technology standards or building codes cited as the design basis · Physical access / facilities

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Signed physical and environmental security concept listing the eight hazard classes · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Contractual security requirement annex imposed on third party landlords · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

Concept written once at build time and never revisited after new sites were added
Third party operated colocation sites left outside the documented requirements
Hazards such as water ingress and air filtration named with no requirement attached to them
No traceable link from risk assessment results to the stated building requirements

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

PI-03 Secure deletion of data · PS-02 Redundancy model