What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.5.10 Acceptable use of information and other associated assets?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.10, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; The acceptable use topic-specific policy stating expected and prohibited behaviour, permitted and forbidden uses, and the monitoring the organization performs; Evidence the policy was communicated to and accepted by personnel and external users; Handling procedures per classification level covering access, copies, storage, media marking and disposal; Records of authorized users for sensitive information and assets.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.5.10?

The policy omits any statement of what monitoring takes place, undermining enforceability

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Organizational controls

`A.5.10` Acceptable use of information and other associated assets

Rules on how information and other associated assets may acceptably be used, together with procedures for handling them, are to be identified, written down and put into practice. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): ensures information and associated assets are protected, used and handled appropriately. As an Annex A reference control, it is compared with the controls determined in risk treatment (6.1.3 c) and recorded in the Statement of Applicability as included or excluded, with the justification and implementation status (6.1.3 d); implementation guidance is ISO/IEC 27002:2022 5.10.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.5.10. 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 ISO/IEC 27001:2022 in the compliance library.

Clauses 4 to 10 are the management-system requirements: none of them can be excluded when an organisation claims conformity. The 93 Annex A controls are a reference set: one may be excluded with a justification in the Statement of Applicability. Certification bodies assess conformity; the evidence lists here are what auditors commonly ask for, not a list the standard prescribes.

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

Records of authorized users for sensitive information and assets · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.10, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
The acceptable use topic-specific policy stating expected and prohibited behaviour, permitted and forbidden uses, and the monitoring the organization performs · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Evidence the policy was communicated to and accepted by personnel and external users · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Handling procedures per classification level covering access, copies, storage, media marking and disposal · 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

The policy omits any statement of what monitoring takes place, undermining enforceability
Handling rules do not differ by classification, so sensitive copies get no extra protection
External users are never shown the acceptable use rules
Use of cloud collaboration tools falls outside the policy entirely

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

A.5.9 Inventory of information and other associated assets · A.5.11 Return of assets