A.6.6·medium·Component: People controlsWhat this control requires
Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements reflecting the organization's needs for the protection of information shall be identified, documented, regularly reviewed and signed by personnel and other relevant interested parties.
In plain English
Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements reflecting the organization's needs for the protection of information shall be identified, documented, regularly reviewed and signed by personnel and other relevant interested parties. In practice, this means you can prove you policy information-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.
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 People controls, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.6.6) 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
- Policy. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
- Information. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
- Management. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
- Protection. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
- Confidentiality. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
- Scope: information, management, people, non-disclosure agreements.
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: Confidentiality or non-disclosure agreements.
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.
- NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.12.5 — Information Exchange
- SOC 2 (2017 TSC) C1.2 — Confidential Information Disposal
- HIPAA (45 CFR Part 164) 164.512(k)(6) — Uses and disclosures for specialized government functions - Providing public benefits
- NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CA-3 — Information Exchange
- ISO/IEC 27701:2025 A.3.18 — Confidentiality agreements
Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022
- Annex A A.6.2 — Terms and conditions of employment
- Annex A A.6.4 — Disciplinary process
- Annex A A.6.5 — Responsibilities after termination or change of employment
- Annex A A.6.7 — Remote working
- Annex A A.6.8 — Information security event reporting
- Annex A A.5.13 — Labelling of information
References
- ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27001:2022
- Catalogue identifier:
Annex A A.6.6
Topics: governance riskpolicy management