What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 5.33 Protection of records?

Records handling guidelines covering storage, chain of custody, tamper prevention and disposal, aligned with the records management policy; A retention schedule listing record types, retention periods, legal basis and permitted storage media; Evidence of controlled destruction at the end of retention periods; Procedures and tests demonstrating that electronic records remain readable across format and technology changes; Retention of cryptographic keys and software needed to read encrypted or signed archives for the full retention period; Records of media condition checks or migration to counter deterioration.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 5.33?

No retention schedule exists, so records are either kept forever or deleted early

ISO/IEC 27002:2022 · Organizational controls

`5.33` Protection of records

Records are to be safeguarded against being lost, destroyed, falsified, accessed without authorization or released without authorization. Purpose: meet legal, regulatory and contractual obligations and community or societal expectations about keeping records protected and available. Guidance: so records stay genuine, trustworthy, complete and usable as their business context and management needs evolve, issue guidelines on storing and handling records, chain of custody and disposal, including preventing tampering, aligned with the records management policy; and prepare a retention schedule naming records and how long each is kept. The storage and handling arrangements should identify records and their retention periods with regard to national or regional law and, where relevant, societal expectations, and allow proper destruction once a record is no longer needed. Protection of particular records takes account of their classification. Records are grouped into types (for example accounting, transaction, personnel, legal), each with its retention period and the physical or electronic media allowed. Storage systems are chosen so that records come back quickly enough and in a usable format. For electronic media, procedures keep records accessible and readable for the whole retention period despite technology change, and the keys and programs for encrypted archives or digital signatures are kept for as long as the records (8.24). Storage and handling follow media manufacturers' recommendations and allow for media deterioration. Other information: records evidence events, transactions or processes and are information assets in any form; metadata describing their context, content, structure and management is essential; law may fix retention periods and content; ISO 15489 covers records management.

Source: ISO/IEC 27002:2022, 5.33. 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 27002:2022 in the compliance library.

ISO/IEC 27002 is guidance on the Annex A controls; certification is against ISO/IEC 27001. Use this set when your sheet follows the 27002 numbering.

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

Evidence of controlled destruction at the end of retention periods · Data governance / DLP tooling
Procedures and tests demonstrating that electronic records remain readable across format and technology changes · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Records of media condition checks or migration to counter deterioration · Data governance / DLP tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Records handling guidelines covering storage, chain of custody, tamper prevention and disposal, aligned with the records management policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A retention schedule listing record types, retention periods, legal basis and permitted storage media · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Retention of cryptographic keys and software needed to read encrypted or signed archives for the full retention period · 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

No retention schedule exists, so records are either kept forever or deleted early
Encrypted archives cannot be opened because the keys were not retained
Legacy formats can no longer be read and no migration was planned
Records are held in systems that allow alteration without any audit trail

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

5.32 Intellectual property rights · 5.34 Privacy and protection of PII