GDPR·Article Article 64·low·Component: Chapter VII: Cooperation and Consistency

What this control requires

Ensure the supervisory authority submits draft decisions to the Board for an opinion on matters like data protection impact assessments, codes of conduct, certification criteria, standard clauses, or binding corporate rules, as per GDPR Articles 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 47, 61, and 62. The Board issues opinions within 8-14 weeks, and the authority must consider them before finalizing decisions. This control addresses Cooperation and Consistency.
— GDPR, Article Article 64

In plain English

Ensure the supervisory authority submits draft decisions to the Board for an opinion on matters like data protection impact assessments, codes of conduct, certification criteria, standard clauses, or binding corporate rules, as per GDPR Articles 35, 40, 41, 42, 43, 46, 47, 61, and 62. In practice, this means you can prove you data supervisory authority-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 VII: Cooperation and Consistency, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Article Article 64) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

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.

Code Review Testing

Pipeline. Require at least one human reviewer plus passing CI (lint, type, unit, security scan) before merge — protected branches enforce this.

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

  • Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Cooperation. 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.
  • Certification. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: supervisory authority, conduct, standard clauses, corporate rules, board.

Evidence to collect

  • Code Repo Scan. Source-control evidence — branch protection, required reviewers, CI status, SCA / SAST reports.

Source control pipelines (GitHub, GitLab) enforce SDLC guardrails. Focus: Opinion of the Board.

Common pitfalls

  • CI security checks set to warn-only; the merge button is faster than the security feedback.
  • 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: application securitysecure developmentcode review testingdevsecopspolicy management