GDPR Article 13 — Information to be provided where personal data are collected from the data subject

What this control requires

Ensures controllers provide data subjects with clear, transparent information (e.g., controller identity, purposes, rights) at the time of personal data collection. This control addresses Data Subject Rights.

In plain English

Ensures controllers provide data subjects with clear, transparent information (e.g., controller identity, purposes, rights) at the time of personal data collection. In practice, this means you can prove you transparent controller-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

GDPR administrative fines reach the greater of €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover. The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) coordinates supervisory-authority enforcement across the EU/EEA, and DPAs publish enforcement decisions citing specific Articles.

This control is rated high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

What an auditor looks for

A DPA or privacy auditor expects: a Records of Processing Activities (RoPA) entry, a documented lawful basis, evidence the Article's data-subject right is operationalised end-to-end, a named DPO contact (where required), and Article 30 records that match what the front-end actually does.

Within Chapter III: Rights of the Data Subject, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Article Article 13) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

1. Write a short policy stating intent, scope and named owner.
2. Encode it as a platform guardrail — SCP, Azure Policy initiative, Organisation Policy, or repository policy.
3. Wire a monitoring signal that catches drift (CSPM rule, SIEM rule, scheduled query, Workspace alert) and ticket it.
4. Review on a documented cadence and capture the review in the risk register or compliance tracker.

Operational checklist

• Transparent. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Information. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Review. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: controller, controllers, rights, information, data subjects.

Evidence to collect

• Identity Scan. IAM / IdP exports — Entra ID, Okta, IAM Identity Center, Workspace directory — showing accounts, roles, MFA state and last sign-in.
• Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.

Identity analytics (Okta, SailPoint, Access Analyzer) demonstrates least-privilege. Focus: Information to be provided where personal data are collected from the data subject.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) P5.1 — Data Subject Access to Personal Information
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.18 — Access rights
• BSI C5:2020 IDM-08 — Confidentiality of authentication information
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 PM-20 — Dissemination Of Privacy Program Information
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.13.4 — Information in Shared System Resources

Related controls in GDPR

• Article Article 26 — Joint controllers
• Article Article 12 — Transparent information, communication and modalities for the exercise of the rights of the data subject
• Article Article 14 — Information to be provided where personal data have not been obtained from the data subject
• Article Article 21 — Right to object
• Article Article 34 — Communication of a personal data breach to the data subject
• Article Article 20 — Right to data portability

References

• European Union — GDPR
• Catalogue identifier: Article Article 13

Topics: identity accessdata protectionidentity managementaccess reviewprivileged accessprivacy management