GDPR·Article Article 33·critical·Component: Chapter IV: Controller and Processor

What this control requires

Controllers must notify the supervisory authority of a personal data breach within 72 hours, unless unlikely to risk rights and freedoms, detailing breach nature, data subjects, records, consequences, and mitigation measures. Processors must inform controllers promptly. Breaches must be documented. This control addresses Breach Notification.
— GDPR, Article Article 33

In plain English

Controllers must notify the supervisory authority of a personal data breach within 72 hours, unless unlikely to risk rights and freedoms, detailing breach nature, data subjects, records, consequences, and mitigation measures. In practice, this means you can prove you notification 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 critical in the source catalogue. Treat gaps here as production incidents in the risk register, not housekeeping.

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 IV: Controller and Processor, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Article Article 33) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Incident Response

Runbook. Maintain a runbook keyed by incident type with named roles (IC, comms, scribe), an out-of-band comms channel, and a 72-hour timeline for external notification.

Tabletop. Run a quarterly tabletop exercise (ransomware, insider, supply-chain) and feed gaps back into the runbook.

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

  • Notification. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Processor. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Records. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Supervisory. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: controller, controllers, supervisory authority, notification, rights, data subjects.

Evidence to collect

  • Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Notification of a personal data breach to the supervisory authority.

Common pitfalls

  • Runbooks that name a role but no person, or list a paging channel that no longer exists.
  • 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.

Related controls in GDPR

References

Topics: governance riskincident responsepolicy managementprivacy management