Cloudflare obtains new ISO/IEC 27701:2019 privacy certification and what that means for you

Cloudflare is one of the first organizations in our industry to have achieved ISO/IEC 27701:2019 certification, and the first web performance & security company to be certified to the new ISO privacy standard as both a data processor and controller.

Providing transparency into our privacy practices has always been a priority for us. We think it is important that we do more than talk about our commitment to privacy — we are continually looking for ways to demonstrate that commitment. For example, after we launched the Internet's fastest, privacy-first public DNS resolver, 1.1.1.1, we didn’t just publish our commitments to our public resolver users, we engaged an independent firm to make sure we were meeting our commitments, and we blogged about it, publishing their report.

Following in that tradition, today we’re excited to announce that Cloudflare has been certified to a new international privacy standard for protecting and managing the processing of personal data — ISO/IEC 27701:2019. The standard is designed such that the requirements organizations must meet to become certified are very closely aligned to the requirements in the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). So this certification provides assurance to our customers that a third party has independently verified that Cloudflare’s privacy program meets GDPR-aligned industry standards.

The International Organization for Standardization (“ISO”) is an international, nongovernmental organization made up of national standards bodies that develops and publishes a wide range of proprietary, industrial, and commercial standards. In August 2019, ISO published ISO/IEC 27701:2019 (“ISO 27701”), a new international privacy standard about protecting and managing the processing of personal data.

This new standard is a privacy extension to the existing and widespread industry standards ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27002, which were first published by ISO in 2005. They describe how to establish and run an Information Security Management System (“ISMS”), and ISO now reports that over 36,000 organizations in 131 countries are currently independently certified as meeting ISO/IEC 27001. Audited ISO certifications are awarded to organizations that have been assessed by an independent, external auditor to meet a specific, published standard. Auditors are also accredited themselves — with the ISO 27000 series of certifications, to published international ISO standards, too.

The ISO 27701 extension to the ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27002 standards is less than two years old and adapts the ISMS management system concept into the creation of a Privacy Information Management System (“PIMS”). There are requirements to make sure this privacy management system is robust and is also continually improving to meet its defined objectives.

We are excited about this new certification because ISO 27701 maps to the requirements of the GDPR, the EU’s benchmark-setting, comprehensive data protection regulation. Article 42 of the GDPR encourages:

...the establishment of data protection certification mechanisms and of data protection seals and marks, for the purpose of demonstrating compliance with this Regulation of processing operations by controllers and processors.

While Article 42 calls for the development of GDPR certifications, no such official certifications exist yet because none have been approved by either of the official bodies — the European Data Protection Board in the EU, or the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office in respect of the UK GDPR. However, when the ISO 27701 standard was published, it contained an Annex D detailing how the standard maps to the GDPR:

This annex gives an indicative mapping between provisions of this document and Articles 5 to 49 except 43 of the General Data Protection Regulation of the European Union. It shows how compliance to requirements and controls of this document can be relevant to fulfil obligations of GDPR.

ISO standards often map to — and frequently reference — other international ISO standards, but it’s unusual for them to map to non-ISO standards, especially to one particular region’s regulations. So until the GDPR regulatory bodies adopt an official certification mechanism, ISO 27701 provides an excellent way to demonstrate externally-audited compliance with the regulation.

Put simply, the ISO 27701 certification provides assurance to our customers that we have a privacy program that has been assessed by a third party to meet an international industry standard aligned to the GDPR, and that requires us to keep our privacy program under continuous compliance. This certification, in addition to the Data Processing Addendum (“DPA”) we make available to our customers in the dashboard, offers our customers multiple layers of assurance that any personal data that Cloudflare processes will be handled in a way that meets the GDPR’s requirements.

Let us do a deeper dive into some of the requirements under ISO 27701The standard contains 31 controls identified for organizations that are personal data controllers, and 18 additional controls identified for organizations that are personal data processors. As Cloudflare’s scope is certifying as both a personal data controller and as a personal data processor of customer information, we had to meet all 49 of these controls.

The controls are essentially a set of best practices that data controllers and processors must meet in terms of data handling practices and transparency about those practices, documenting a legal basis for processing and for transfer of data to third countries (outside the EU), and handling data subject rights, among others.

Example Requirement 1:Organizations should maintain policy and document specific procedures related to the international transfer of personal data.

Cloudflare has implemented this requirement by maintaining an internal policy restricting the transfer of personal data between jurisdictions unless that transfer meets defined criteria. Customers, whether free or paid, enter into a standard Data Processing Addendum with Cloudflare which is available on the Cloudflare Customer Dashboard and which sets out the restrictions we must adhere to when processing personal data on behalf of customers, including when transferring personal data between jurisdictions. Additionally, Cloudflare publishes a list of sub-processors that we may use when processing personal data, and in which countries or jurisdictions that processing may take place.

Example Requirement 2:Organizations should maintain documented personal data minimization objectives, including what mechanisms are used to meet those objectives.

Cloudflare maintains internal policies on how we manage data throughout its full lifecycle, including data minimization objectives. In fact, our commitment to privacy starts with the objective of minimizing personal data. That’s why, if we don’t have to collect certain personal data in order to deliver our service to customers, we’d prefer not to collect it at all in the first place. Where we do have to, we collect the minimum amount necessary to achieve the identified purpose and process it for the minimum amount necessary, transparently documenting the processing in our public privacy policy.

We’re also proud to have developed a Privacy by Design policy, which rigorously sets out the high-standards and evaluations that must be undertaken if products and services are to collect and process personal data. We use these mechanisms to ensure our collection and use of personal data is limited and transparently documented.

Cloudflare’s PIMS was assessed by a third-party auditor, A-LIGN in March 2021. Certifying to the ISO 27701 privacy standard is a multi-step process that includes:

• understanding and planning for the standard;

• identifying and adapting the controls the organisation will implement;

• internally auditing against the requirements;  and

• externally auditing against the standard (itself a two-stage process)

before finally being certified against the standard by the independent auditor. Once certified, the privacy management system is continually evaluated and improved, with internal and external audits on an ongoing annual basis.

Cloudflare has been certified as both a data processor and as a data controller of customer information.[¹] This means that Cloudflare is one of the first organisations in our industry to have achieved this standard, and the first web performance & security company to be certified to ISO 27701 as both a data controller and processor. Alongside Cloudflare’s existing ISO 27001:2013 certificate, Cloudflare’s new ISO 27701:2019 certificate is now available for customers to request from their sales representative.

For more information about our certifications and reports, please visit our privacy and compliance pages — www.cloudflare.com/compliance. You can also reach us at [email protected] for any questions.

[1]The GDPR defines a “data controller” as the “natural or legal person . . . or other body which, alone or jointly with others, determines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data”; and a “data processor” as “a natural or legal person . . . which processes personal data on behalf of the controller.”