GDPR Article 3 — Territorial Scope

What this control requires

Applies to personal data processing by controllers/processors established in the EU, or non-EU entities targeting/offering services to or monitoring EU data subjects, or where Member State law applies. This control addresses Global Operations.

In plain English

Applies to personal data processing by controllers/processors established in the EU, or non-EU entities targeting/offering services to or monitoring EU data subjects, or where Member State law applies. In practice, this means you can prove you territorial scope-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 I: General Provisions, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Article Article 3) 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

• Territorial. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• General. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: scope, controllers, data subjects.

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: Territorial Scope.

Common pitfalls

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

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.

• India DPDP Act 2023 DS-008 — Data Principal Nomination Mechanism
• BSI C5:2020 OIS-01 — Information Security Management System (ISMS)
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) P3.2 — Consent Management for Personal Information Collection
• ISO/IEC 27701:2025 A.3.15 — Independent review

Related controls in GDPR

• Article Article 2 — Material Scope
• Article Article 44 — General principle for transfers
• Article Article 14 — Information to be provided where personal data have not been obtained from the data subject
• Article Article 18 — Right to restriction of processing
• Article Article 19 — Notification obligation regarding rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing
• Article Article 10 — Processing of personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences

References

• European Union — GDPR
• Catalogue identifier: Article Article 3

Topics: governance riskcontinuous monitoringpolicy managementprivacy management