# ISO/IEC 27701:2025 A.3.27 — Secure development life cycle

- Source: https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27701-2025/a-3-27-secure-development-life-cycle
- Section: [Compliance](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance) › [ISO/IEC 27701:2025 PIMS Controls](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27701-2025) › Security considerations
- Last updated: 2026-06-05
- Publisher: iCompaas, Inc. (https://www.icompaas.com)

**ISO/IEC 27701:2025**·Annex A `A.3.27`·high·Component: **Security considerations**

## What this control requires

> Establish and apply secure development rules for software/systems handling PII. Implementation: Integrate privacy/security requirements into SDLC, checkpoints and reviews. Justification: Embeds privacy-by-design and reduces vulnerabilities.
> 
> — ISO/IEC 27701:2025, Annex A A.3.27

### In plain English

Establish and apply secure development rules for software/systems handling PII. In practice, this means you can prove you implement secure development life cycle-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.3.27) 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.

### Operational checklist

-   **Implement.** Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
-   **Review.** Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
-   **Scope:** secure development life cycle.

## Evidence to collect

-   **Code Repo Scan.** Source-control evidence — branch protection, required reviewers, CI status, SCA / SAST reports.
-   **Policy Document.** A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policies, procedures, and registers document the safeguard. SDLC and repository gates evidence secure development. Focus: Secure development life cycle.

## Common pitfalls

-   CI security checks set to warn-only; the merge button is faster than the security feedback.

## 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 800-53 Rev. 5 SA-18(1)** — Multiple Phases Of System Development Life Cycle](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/nist-sp-800-53-rev-5/sa-18-1-multiple-phases-of-system-development-life-cycle)
-   [**BSI C5:2020 DEV-08** — Version Control](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/bsi-c5-2020/dev-08-version-control)
-   [**ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.25** — Secure development life cycle](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27001-2022/a-8-25-secure-development-life-cycle)
-   [**ISO/IEC 42001:2023 A.6.1.3** — AI system design and development process](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-42001-2023/a-6-1-3-ai-system-design-and-development-process)

## Related controls in ISO/IEC 27701:2025

-   [**Annex A A.3.30** — Outsourced development](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27701-2025/a-3-30-outsourced-development)
-   [**Annex A A.3.31** — Test information](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27701-2025/a-3-31-test-information)

## References

-   [ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27701:2025](https://www.iso.org/standard/85819.html)
-   Catalogue identifier: `Annex A A.3.27`

Topics: secure developmentdevsecops