What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.5.12 Classification of information?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.12, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; The topic-specific classification policy with named levels, criteria based on impact, and conventions covering confidentiality, integrity and availability; Evidence the scheme was communicated to relevant interested parties and built into procedures; Classification records in the asset inventory or labels showing owner-assigned classifications; Records of classification reviews and reclassification when sensitivity or criticality changed.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.5.12?

Everything is classified as confidential, so the scheme gives no useful handling signal

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Organizational controls

`A.5.12` Classification of information

Information is to be classified according to the organization's security needs, judged on confidentiality, integrity, availability and the requirements of relevant interested parties. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): ensures the protection needs of information are identified and understood according to its importance. 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 5.12.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.5.12. 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

Classification records in the asset inventory or labels showing owner-assigned classifications · Data governance / DLP tooling
Records of classification reviews and reclassification when sensitivity or criticality changed · Data governance / DLP tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.12, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
The topic-specific classification policy with named levels, criteria based on impact, and conventions covering confidentiality, integrity and availability · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Evidence the scheme was communicated to relevant interested parties and built into procedures · 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

Everything is classified as confidential, so the scheme gives no useful handling signal
Classifications are never revisited once information is published or ages
Integrity and availability are ignored and only confidentiality is classified
Information received from partners is handled under their labels with no agreed mapping

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.5.11 Return of assets · A.5.13 Labelling of information