Difference Between GDPR and ISO 27001

If you think, “I am ISO 27001 compliant. So, I am almost GDPR compliant.” Well, you are not! This is a common misconception and we will tell you why in this article. The whole debate about the GDPR vs ISO 27001 is because numerous online communities state how ISO 27001 is a starting point for GDPR and how both these compliance routes showcase certain aspects of data protection. But, those discussions are neither entirely true nor entirely false. While there are a lot of security controls and measures that are similar and interusable, the main focus of the GDPR law and ISO 27001 isn’t the same.

While the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) talks about protecting the privacy rights of data subjects(individuals) in the European Union (EU), ISO 27001 talks about providing measures to continuously improve an organization’s Information Security Management Systems (ISMS).

Before the ISO 27001 vs GDPR comparison begins, let’s touch base on what ISO 27001 & GDPR are.

What Is ISO 27001?

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) launched the ISO 27001 framework to build and improve the ISMS of an organization. It defines global best practices on how organizations should protect customer data, manage security processes, and set basic minimum requirements for protection and encryption. These measures are applicable to the organization’s data assets and customer data.

The impact of ISO 27001’s ISMS standardization is profound. For instance, when an organization shares their ISO 27001 report, they announce to the world that their infosec practices are inline with the current global standards. And this boosts trust and helps them unlock new business opportunities which could have been unachievable otherwise.

ISO 27001 emphasizes on data protection and ISO data protectionfocuses on:

• Information Security Management
• Change Management
• Company Processes
• Employee Processes
• HR Processes
• Security and Encryption

An ISO 27001 reflects a business’ maturity towards security and data protection and shows their commitment to invest time, capital, and resources to maintain it on an ongoing basis.

It also enables an organization to foresee the security risks they could be undertaking and helps them plan. Here’s the summary of the core principles of ISO 27001

Asset Management

An organization should identify the different information assets they process and assign security measures to manage those assets in a protected environment. This principle focuses on Asset Inventory, Acceptable use of Assets, Ownership, and Return of Assets.

Access Management Control

This talks about how access to certain secure networks or assets is regulated within an organization.

Rules are assigned to each job, and different access levels are assigned to each job. For example, a person with Level A access is provided access to all basic applications.

A Level B employee is given privileged access i.e Level B employees can access basic applications plus sensitive information because their job requires it.

Operational Security

Annex A12 of ISO 27001 talks about operational security.
The focus is on:

• Documenting operational procedures
• Using change management within an organization
• Conducting Capacity Information Management
• Separating development, testing, and operational environments

Incident Management

Security incidents/cyber attacks cannot be unavoided, no matter how fortified a  business is. ISO 27001 requires organisations to have policies and procedures in place to deal with security incidents.
To this effect, every business looking to become ISO 27001 certified will have to:

• Define roles whose primary job would be to deal with security incidents
• Identify and report all vulnerabilities within their business environments that could turn into security incidents
• Define a process to assess the nature and impact of an incident (in the event of one)
• Deploy a predefined incident response program (breach notification plus risk mitigation)
• Document your learnings during and after an incident
• Collect all evidence that could be related to an incident

Synopsis

ISO 27001 helps businesses enhance their security measures to protect themselves from any risk that could cause potential harm.
It is designed to put the business’ needs ahead of the data of the individual they process.

The GDPR, in comparison, focuses on protecting the rights of a data subject from businesses. The difference between GDPR and ISO 27001 can get easily overlooked because of the overlapping similarities they share. Let’s take a closer look at the GDPR law.

What is GDPR?

The GDPR law was introduced in May 2016 and was fully effective 2018 onwards. GDPR aims to protect the rights and freedom of data subjects (individuals) and the measures and policies organizations should implement when processing personal information of data subjects (individuals). The GDPR explains this with its seven principles:

 Lawfulness, Fairness and Transparency

Businesses must obtain data lawfully. They must be transparent with the user on how they intend to process it and how long they intend to use it, and the users should not be mislead in any of these.