NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 PS-5 — Personnel Transfer

What this control requires

Review the operational need for current logical and physical access when individuals are reassigned or transferred, initiate necessary actions, and modify access as needed to align with new operational roles. This control supports the Governance capability within the Personnel Security family.

In plain English

Review the operational need for current logical and physical access when individuals are reassigned or transferred, initiate necessary actions, and modify access as needed to align with new operational roles. In practice, this means you can prove you access management-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

SP 800-53 is the catalogue every U.S. federal authorisation (FedRAMP, FISMA, CMMC) and most regulated industries point at. A missing control surfaces as a Plan of Action & Milestones (POA&M) item that an Authorizing Official must approve before the Authority To Operate is granted or renewed.

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

A 3PAO (FedRAMP) or Independent Assessor (NIST RMF) tests against NIST SP 800-53A assessment procedures. For each control they expect a documented implementation that addresses every assessment objective (Examine, Interview, Test) and an implementation summary in the System Security Plan.

Within Personnel Security, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control PS-5) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Physical Security

Inheritance. For cloud-only operations, inherit physical controls from the provider's SOC 2 / ISO 27001 report and document the inheritance in the SoA.

Operational checklist

• Access. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Physical. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Modify. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Review. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: management, modify, actions, personnel, identity, review, capability, physical access.

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: Personnel Transfer.

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 3.9.1 — Personnel Screening
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC6.1 — Logical Access Controls
• CIS Controls v8 6.7 — Centralize Access Control
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.15 — Access control
• BSI C5:2020 PS-04 — Physical site access control

Related controls in NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5

• Control PS-6(3) — Post-Employment Requirements
• Control PS-4(2) — Automated Actions
• Control PS-6(2) — Classified Information Requiring Special Protection
• Control PS-9 — Position Descriptions
• Control PE-2 — Physical Access Authorizations
• Control PE-2(3) — Restrict Unescorted Access

References

• NIST Computer Security Resource Center — NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5
• Catalogue identifier: Control PS-5

Topics: identity accessidentity managementaccess reviewprivileged accessphysical security