What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on Art.45 Transfers on the basis of an adequacy decision?

Per transfer, the adequacy decision relied on identified by instrument, with confirmation the recipient and the data fall inside its territorial and sectoral scope; A monitoring process for changes to adequacy decisions, with a named owner and evidence it has actually been run; The fallback plan for each adequacy based transfer should the decision be suspended or repealed, tested against the Article 46 and 49 options; Where a decision covers only certified or listed recipients, evidence the recipient's current status was verified.

What is the most common gap auditors find on Art.45?

Adequacy assumed for a whole country where the decision covers only a sector or only listed recipients, with the recipient's listing never verified

GDPR · Chapter V - Transfers of Personal Data

`Art.45` Transfers on the basis of an adequacy decision

Personal data may be transferred to a third country, a territory, one or more specified sectors within a third country, or an international organisation where the Commission has decided that it ensures an adequate level of protection, and such a transfer requires no specific authorisation. Adequacy decisions carry a defined territorial and sectoral scope, provide for periodic review at least every four years, and may be repealed, amended or suspended by the Commission. Relying on adequacy therefore requires confirming that the specific recipient and data fall inside the scope of a decision that is in force at the time of the transfer, and monitoring for amendment, suspension or repeal of that decision.

Source: GDPR, Art.45. 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 GDPR in the compliance library.

Many articles apply only where their condition is met (a data protection officer under Article 37, an impact assessment under Article 35, a representative under Article 27); the condition is in each statement.

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

Where a decision covers only certified or listed recipients, evidence the recipient's current status was verified · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Per transfer, the adequacy decision relied on identified by instrument, with confirmation the recipient and the data fall inside its territorial and sectoral scope · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A monitoring process for changes to adequacy decisions, with a named owner and evidence it has actually been run · Policy repository / GRC workspace
The fallback plan for each adequacy based transfer should the decision be suspended or repealed, tested against the Article 46 and 49 options · 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

Adequacy assumed for a whole country where the decision covers only a sector or only listed recipients, with the recipient's listing never verified
No monitoring for suspension or invalidation, so a transfer continues on a decision that has since been struck down
Adequacy relied on for the direct transfer with no consideration of onward transfers out of the adequate country
The decision recorded at contract signature and never rechecked at the periodic review point

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

Art.44 General principle for transfers · Art.46 Transfers subject to appropriate safeguards