What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.3.19 Clear desk and clear screen?

Rules limiting the printing and copying of PII; Print controls or monitoring on systems holding PII; Clear desk and clear screen rules and spot check results.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.3.19?

PII printed routinely for convenience with no restriction

ISO/IEC 27701:2025 · Annex A Table A.3 information security controls with PII-specific guidance

`A.3.19` Clear desk and clear screen

The organization shall keep printed or other paper copies containing PII to the least that the identified processing purpose requires, on top of the clear desk and clear screen rules that protect unattended information.

Source: ISO/IEC 27701:2025, A.3.19. 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 27701:2025 in the compliance library.

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

Clear desk and clear screen rules and spot check results · Physical access / facilities

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Rules limiting the printing and copying of PII · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Print controls or monitoring on systems holding PII · 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

PII printed routinely for convenience with no restriction
Printed PII left on shared printers

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.3.18 Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements · A.3.20 Storage media