Governance, Risk & Compliance
ISO 27701 privacy information management is the answer to a problem every privacy team eventually hits: data protection law tells you what outcome is required and gives you no certifiable way to prove you achieve it. There is no GDPR certificate. ISO 27701 is the closest thing to one.
It extends ISO 27001:2022 into a privacy information management system, the same governance machinery of scope, risk, objectives, internal audit and management review, applied to personal data, with additional guidance for organisations acting as controllers and for those acting as processors. The mapping annexes to GDPR and other regimes are what make it commercially useful.
In practice it turns privacy from a legal position into an operating system: records of processing that stay current, privacy impact assessments that happen before launch, data subject rights served on a clock, and evidence produced continuously. It sits directly alongside GDPR and DPDP Act programmes rather than replacing them.
Why you need it
01 / 06Both GDPR and the DPDP Act require you to show compliance, not merely achieve it. A management system produces that evidence as a by-product of running, instead of as a reconstruction exercise when a regulator or a customer asks.
Records of processing go stale, impact assessments get skipped under delivery pressure, and retention schedules exist as a document nobody executes. The audit and review cycle is what keeps the programme honest between incidents.
The standard maps to GDPR and can be extended to the DPDP Act, and to sector rules. Organisations operating across India, the EU and elsewhere would otherwise run parallel programmes over the same data.
Security certification does not answer privacy questions. A certified PIMS with a clear scope answers them with a document instead of a lengthy questionnaire.
Instrument
02 / 06A PIMS reuses most of an ISMS. Toggle the regimes you are asked for and see how much of the work is shared.
What we deliver
03 / 06Your existing ISMS and privacy practice measured against ISO 27701, with the controller and processor guidance applied according to the roles you actually hold. Delivered as a gap register with effort and sequence.
The boundaries of the privacy management system, and a clear determination of where you act as controller, where as processor and where as both, because the obligations, and the applicable annex, differ substantially.
A complete inventory of processing activities: what data, from whom, on what lawful basis, for what purpose, shared with whom, held how long, and where it physically sits. Built to be maintained rather than produced once for an audit.
Privacy by design in the delivery process, impact assessments triggered by defined criteria, consent and preference management, retention and deletion actually executed, and the security controls the privacy risk assessment selects.
Working procedures for access, correction, erasure, portability, objection and grievance redressal, with identity verification, internal routing, statutory deadlines tracked and responses evidenced.
Internal audit against the extended scope, management review, corrective action, and support through the certification body's assessment alongside your ISO 27001:2022 audit.
How we run it
04 / 06Gap analysis of the existing ISMS and privacy practice against ISO 27701 requirements, credited against what ISO 27001:2022 already covers so the incremental work is visible.
Weeks 1-3PIMS boundaries, controller and processor roles per processing activity, interested parties and their expectations, and measurable privacy objectives.
Weeks 3-4The controls the privacy risk assessment selects, across the lifecycle: collection and lawful basis, minimisation, security, sharing and transfers, retention and deletion.
Months 1-5Internal policies and procedures, plus the external-facing privacy notices, consent mechanisms and processing agreements that have to be consistent with them.
Months 2-5Role-specific training: marketing, engineering, HR, support and procurement each handle personal data differently, and generic privacy training reliably fails to change what any of them do.
Month 5Internal audit, management review, corrective action, and the certification body's assessment of the extended scope.
Months 6-8Key benefits
05 / 06Records of processing, impact assessments, rights requests and retention actions all generate dated evidence as they run, which is exactly what accountability requires.
One control set mapped across GDPR, the DPDP Act and customer requirements, so obligations that overlap are satisfied by the same work.
Defined procedures, routing and deadline tracking mean a data subject request is a process rather than an interruption to someone's week.
Tools we use
06 / 06No “latest tech tools”. These are the ones your report will cite, alongside the manual work that a tool cannot do for you.
Standards
Privacy operations
Rights handling
Evidence
Mapping
Why Aphelion
SharedDarshap Nayak, formerly of KPMG, holds a master’s degree in cybersecurity and more than seven years in security operations. Jaimin Somani brings fifteen-plus years of academic and hands-on VAPT. Hemang Desai is an ICT network specialist from Australia. You will meet them, not a logo.
Meet the teamEvery finding arrives with the reproduction steps, the affected asset and the fix, ranked by what it actually reaches in your environment, not by a CVSS number copied from a scanner. You get the report and the raw output, not a summary of a summary.
See how we testAhmedabad and Sharjah, working the same methodology on the same tooling. Indian data-residency requirements and UAE delivery are both ordinary here, and the AphelioNYX AD Pen-Test module runs entirely inside your perimeter when regulation says it must.
The platformInvent a statistic to make a slide land. Publish your name as a client without written permission. Print an award badge nobody awarded. Founded in 2024. We say so, and we attribute experience to the people who have it.
Ask us anythingAcross the globe, and across eight industries. We name a client only with their written permission.
AphelioNYX is SOC 2, ISO and GDPR compliant; attestations are available on request under NDA. We would rather hand you the report than print a badge.
Questions
FAQNext door
RelatedA personalised walkthrough and a free readiness assessment against the frameworks you are actually being asked for. Pick a time that suits you, or write to us. We reply within one business day.