ISO 27001 A.5.14: sending information out, explained for startups
What A.5.14 asks of a small company, and what an auditor samples.
Protect information whenever it moves between people, systems, or organizations. Agree on the rules and safeguards for sharing data before you send it.
Why it exists: to share information outside the company only in safe, agreed ways.
A.5.14 Information transfer
Information is shared outside the company only in safe, agreed ways. What proves it: rules for sending information outside the company, and the agreements or tools that enforce them.
A certification auditor samples transfer rules and agreements with the parties you exchange data with. A file that usually does the job: the transfer section of your policy plus a data processing agreement, or file sharing settings limited to approved domains.
How to put it in place
Each step leaves a record, and the record is what the auditor samples rather than the step itself. Inside Polara, the control card for A.5.14 walks you through it in this order.
- Write down the approved ways to share data: encrypted email, a secure sharing link or a managed file transfer.
- Turn off sharing outside the company domain where you can.
- Cover regular exchanges with a data sharing agreement.
No question in the readiness assessment covers A.5.14 directly, so the control card is its whole evidence path.
Policies, connectors and the SOC 2 overlap
In the ISO 27001 policy pack, the Asset Management and Information Classification Policy covers A.5.14. An auditor reads the policy for the rule, then samples the records to see the rule was followed.
The same evidence counts toward SOC 2. The Trust Services criterion that cover this ground: CC6.7, data in transit.
Organizational controls
A.5.14 is one of the 37 organizational controls in Annex A. How the company runs security: policies, roles, suppliers, incidents, continuity and legal duties. Most of these are written decisions and the records that show you follow them.
Nearby controls in the same theme:
- A.5.11, returning assets
- A.5.12, classifying information
- A.5.13, labeling information
- A.5.15, access control rules
- A.5.16, identities and accounts
- A.5.17, passwords and secrets
Before it: A.5.13, labeling information. After it: A.5.15, access control rules. Every control, by theme, is on the Annex A controls page.
Questions
What does ISO 27001 A.5.14 require?
What evidence does an auditor want for A.5.14?
Get ready for ISO 27001 certification.
The readiness assessment is free, with no payment and no card. ISO 27001 is part of Constellation, at $10,800 a year: everything in Orbit plus the management system, the policies, the evidence and the management review for ISO 27001, and your SOC 2 Type 2 audit is included in every contract year. You contract the certification body directly.
The internal audit is priced separately: Polara arranges it with an independent internal auditor from our partner network who works in the platform, and quotes it for your company.
Take the free assessmentPolara Labs is not a certification body. Certification audits are performed by independent accredited certification bodies.