ISO/IEC 27001:2022·Annex A A.7.7·medium·Component: Physical controls

What this control requires

Clear desk rules for papers and removable storage media and clear screen rules for information processing facilities shall be defined and appropriately enforced.
— ISO/IEC 27001:2022, Annex A A.7.7

In plain English

Clear desk rules for papers and removable storage media and clear screen rules for information processing facilities shall be defined and appropriately enforced. 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 Physical controls, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.7.7) 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.
  • Screen. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Physical. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: information, management, media.

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: Clear desk and clear screen.

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.

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022

References

Topics: governance riskpolicy management