GDPR·Article Article 40·low·Component: Chapter IV: Controller and Processor

What this control requires

Encourage development of GDPR-compliant codes of conduct by associations, addressing fair processing, data subject rights, security, breach notifications, and data transfers. Submit drafts to supervisory authorities for approval, ensuring compliance monitoring and public registration. This control addresses Codes of Conduct.
— GDPR, Article Article 40

In plain English

Encourage development of GDPR-compliant codes of conduct by associations, addressing fair processing, data subject rights, security, breach notifications, and data transfers. In practice, this means you can prove you data 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.

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 40) 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.

Secure Development

Pipeline. Require code review, SAST (Semgrep / Snyk Code), SCA (Dependabot / Renovate), secret-scanning and IaC scanning in the merge pipeline.

Branch protection. Protected branches enforce reviews, signed commits and passing CI before merge; document the protection rules as the control evidence.

Operational checklist

  • Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Processor. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Codes. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Transfers. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: controller, transfers, conduct, rights.

Evidence to collect

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

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Codes of conduct.

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.
  • CI security checks set to warn-only; the merge button is faster than the security feedback.

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 riskcontinuous monitoringincident responsepolicy managementsecure development