National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN ISO/IEC 27555:2025. It is identical to ISO/IEC 27555:2021.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee IST/33/5, Identity Management and Privacy Technologies.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

Foreword

ISO (the International Organization for Standardization) and IEC (the International Electrotechnical Commission) form the specialized system for worldwide standardization. National bodies that are members of ISO or IEC participate in the development of International Standards through technical committees established by the respective organization to deal with particular fields of technical activity. ISO and IEC technical committees collaborate in fields of mutual interest. Other international organizations, governmental and non-governmental, in liaison with ISO and IEC, also take part in the work.

The procedures used to develop this document and those intended for its further maintenance are described in the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1. In particular, the different approval criteria needed for the different types of document should be noted. This document was drafted in accordance with the editorial rules of the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2 (see www.iso.org/directives or www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs).

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. ISO and IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights. Details of any patent rights identified during the development of the document will be in the Introduction and/or on the ISO list of patent declarations received (see www.iso.org/patents) or the IEC list of patent declarations received (see patents.iec.ch).

Any trade name used in this document is information given for the convenience of users and does not constitute an endorsement.

For an explanation of the voluntary nature of standards, the meaning of ISO specific terms and expressions related to conformity assessment, as well as information about ISO's adherence to the World Trade Organization (WTO) principles in the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) see www.iso.org/iso/foreword.html. In the IEC, see www.iec.ch/understanding-standards.

This document was prepared by Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1, Information technology, Subcommittee SC 27, Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection.

Any feedback or questions on this document should be directed to the user’s national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found at www.iso.org/members.html and www.iec.ch/national-committees.

Introduction

Many functional processes and IT applications use personally identifiable information (PII), which is subject to various compliance provisions relating to privacy. Thus, organizations need to ensure that PII is not retained for longer than is necessary and that it is deleted at the appropriate time. This can require organizations to fulfil the rights of PII principals, such as the right to obtain erasure (to be forgotten). ISO/IEC 29100 defines principles of “data minimization” and “use, retention and disclosure limitation” for PII, which can be enforced using deletion as a security control.

PII deletion requires a set of carefully designed, clear and easily understood deletion rules, embodying appropriate retention periods that satisfy the demands of multiple stakeholders. These rules should also conform with requirements originating from codes of practice and other standards. Mechanisms are to be correctly implemented and appropriately operated. In order to ensure the legally compliant deletion of PII, the PII controller needs to develop policies and procedures for deletion that include a set of rules and responsibilities for the processes involved. The chances of success for the development and implementation of these policies and processes can be improved if the PII controller uses a recognized approach to their design and implementation.

This document provides a framework for developing and establishing policies and procedures for PII deletion that can be implemented by an organization. This framework allows for consistent deletion of PII throughout an organization.

This European Standard was approved by CEN on 7 March 2025.

CEN and CENELEC members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration. Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CEN and CENELEC member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CEN and CENELEC member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CEN and CENELEC members are the national standards bodies and national electrotechnical committees of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

The text of ISO/IEC 27555:2021 has been prepared by Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 "Information technology” of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and has been taken over as EN ISO/IEC 27555:2025 by Technical Committee CEN-CENELEC/ JTC 13 “Cybersecurity and Data Protection” the secretariat of which is held by DIN.

This European Standard shall be given the status of a national standard, either by publication of an identical text or by endorsement, at the latest by September 2025, and conflicting national standards shall be withdrawn at the latest by September 2025.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CEN-CENELEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

This document has been prepared under a standardization request addressed to CEN and CENELEC by the European Commission. The Standing Committee of the EFTA States subsequently approves these requests for its Member States.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national standards body. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CEN and CENELEC websites.

According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organizations of the following countries are bound to implement this European Standard: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and the United Kingdom.

Endorsement notice

The text of ISO/IEC 27555:2021 has been approved by CEN-CENELEC as EN ISO/IEC 27555:2025 without any modification.

1 Scope

This document contains guidelines for developing and establishing policies and procedures for deletion of personally identifiable information (PII) in organizations by specifying:

a harmonized terminology for PII deletion;
an approach for defining deletion rules in an efficient way;
a description of required documentation;
a broad definition of roles, responsibilities and processes.

This document is intended to be used by organizations where PII is stored or processed.

This document does not address:

specific legal provision, as given by national law or specified in contracts;
specific deletion rules for particular clusters of PII that are defined by PII controllers for processing PII;
deletion mechanisms;
reliability, security and suitability of deletion mechanisms;
specific techniques for de-identification of data.

2 Normative references

3 Terms and definitions

4 Symbols and abbreviated terms

5 Framework for deletion

5.1 General

5.2 Constraints

5.3 Clusters of PII

5.4 Retention period and regular deletion period

5.5 Archives and backup copies

5.6 Standard deletion periods, starting points, deletion rules and deletion classes

5.7 Special situations

5.8 Documentation of policies and procedures

6 Clusters of PII

6.1 General

6.2 Identification

6.3 Documentation

7 Specification of deletion periods

7.1 Standard and regular deletion periods

7.2 Regular deletion period specifications

7.3 Standard deletion period identification

7.4 Deletion period specifications for special situations

8 Deletion classes

8.1 Abstract starting points — abstract deletion rules

8.2 Matrix of deletion classes

8.3 Allocation of deletion classes and definition of deletion rules

9 Requirements for implementation

9.1 General

9.2 Conditions for starting points outside IT systems

9.3 Requirements for implementation for organization-wide aspects

9.4 Requirements for implementation for individual IT systems

9.5 Deletion in regular manual processes

9.6 Requirements for implementation for PII processor

9.7 Control deletion in special cases

10 Responsibilities

10.1 General

10.2 Documentation

10.3 Implementation

Bibliography

BS EN ISO/IEC 27555:2025

Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection. Guidelines on personally identifiable information deletion

Current

Published:

30 Apr 2025