ISO/IEC 27701:2025 A.3.10 — Supplier agreements

What this control requires

Establish info security requirements for suppliers based on relationship. Implementation: Include minimum technical & organisational measures in supplier contracts; audit clauses. Justification: Ensures supplier alignment with PII protection obligations.

In plain English

Establish info security requirements for suppliers based on relationship. In practice, this means you can prove you implement supplier agreements-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

ISO 27701 is the international way to evidence the GDPR principle of accountability: certified PIMS controls translate directly into the records, contracts and rights-handling that supervisory authorities want, and into the privacy-engineering evidence SOC 2 + Privacy auditors and enterprise procurement teams ask for.

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

PIMS auditors expect ISO 27001 to be implemented first and then the 27701-additional controls tested. For PII controllers they look at lawful-basis and rights-handling evidence; for PII processors they look at customer-instructions, sub-processor controls and return/transfer/disposal evidence.

Within Security considerations, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.3.10) 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

• Implement. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Ensure. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Protect. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: supplier agreements.

Evidence to collect

• Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.
• Vendor Risk Management. vendor_risk_management evidence
• Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policies, procedures, and registers document the safeguard. Infrastructure posture tooling (AWS/Azure/GCP configuration, encryption, backup, logging) verifies technical enforcement. Processor due diligence, contracts, and disclosure registers evidence third-party controls. Focus: Supplier agreements.

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.

• CIS Controls v8 16.2 — Establish and Maintain a Process to Accept and Address Software Vulnerabilities
• ISO/IEC 42001:2023 A.10.2 — Allocation of responsibilities
• BSI C5:2020 PS-01 — Physical Security and Environmental Control Requirements
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.19 — Information security in supplier relationships
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC9.2 — Vendor Risk Management

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27701:2025

• Annex A A.3.18 — Confidentiality agreements
• Annex A A.3.30 — Outsourced development
• Annex A A.2.2.2 — Customer agreement
• Annex A A.2.2.3 — Organization's purposes
• Annex A A.2.2.4 — Marketing & advertising use
• Annex A A.2.2.5 — Infringing instruction

References

• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27701:2025
• Catalogue identifier: Annex A A.3.10

Topics: vendor riskgovernance riskvendor managementsupply chain security