ISO/IEC 27001:2022·Annex A A.5.16·high·Component: Organizational controls

What this control requires

The full life cycle of identities shall be managed.
— ISO/IEC 27001:2022, Annex A A.5.16

In plain English

The full life cycle of identities shall be managed. In practice, this means you can prove you management management-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

ISO 27001 certification depends on showing each Annex A control is either implemented or explicitly justified for exclusion in the Statement of Applicability (SoA). Certification bodies sample controls during surveillance audits, and a missing SoA entry — or implementation that doesn't match the SoA wording — is a finding.

This control is rated high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

What an auditor looks for

An ISO 27001 lead auditor looks for: (1) an SoA entry covering the control with justification, (2) a documented procedure or policy implementing it, (3) records that prove the procedure runs (logs, tickets, training records) and (4) management-review evidence that effectiveness is monitored.

Within Organizational controls, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.5.16) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

  1. Write a short policy stating intent, scope and named owner.
  2. Encode it as a platform guardrail — SCP, Azure Policy initiative, Organisation Policy, or repository policy.
  3. Wire a monitoring signal that catches drift (CSPM rule, SIEM rule, scheduled query, Workspace alert) and ticket it.
  4. Review on a documented cadence and capture the review in the risk register or compliance tracker.

Operational checklist

  • Management. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Identity. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Access. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: management.

Evidence to collect

  • Identity Scan. IAM / IdP exports — Entra ID, Okta, IAM Identity Center, Workspace directory — showing accounts, roles, MFA state and last sign-in.

Identity analytics (Okta, SailPoint, Access Analyzer) demonstrates least-privilege. Focus: Identity management.

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 ISO/IEC 27001:2022

References

Topics: governance riskidentity accessidentity managementaccess reviewprivileged access