GDPR·Article Article 23·medium·Component: Chapter IX: Specific Situations

What this control requires

This control allows restrictions on data subject rights under GDPR for specific purposes, such as national security, public safety, and criminal investigations, provided the measures are necessary, proportionate, and respect fundamental rights. This control addresses Specific Situations.
— GDPR, Article Article 23

In plain English

This control allows restrictions on data subject rights under GDPR for specific purposes, such as national security, public safety, and criminal investigations, provided the measures are necessary, proportionate, and respect fundamental rights. In practice, this means you can prove you restrictions national security-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.

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 IX: Specific Situations, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Article Article 23) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Policy Management

Docs. Keep each policy in version-controlled Markdown alongside the code that implements it; ship a signed PDF snapshot at each annual review and link the SHA into the SoA.

Operational checklist

  • Restrictions. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: national security, public safety, criminal investigations, proportionate, respect fundamental rights, situations.

Evidence to collect

  • Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.
  • Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Restrictions.

Common pitfalls

  • Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.

Related controls in GDPR

References

Topics: governance riskpolicy management