Governance Briefing — ICO launches Accountability Framework for GDPR compliance

Executive briefing: The ICO published its Accountability Framework as a practical roadmap for demonstrating compliance, organizing GDPR controls into governance themes such as leadership, risk management, processor oversight, and incident response with supporting checklists and actions.^{ICO Accountability Framework overview}

Programme steps

• Map governance owners. Assign executive sponsors for each framework area—policies, DPIAs, training, processor due diligence, and incident response—to maintain accountability records.
• Evidence controls. Collect and centralize proofs such as DPIA reports, RoPA extracts, supplier assessments, and breach response logs to meet Article 5(2) documentation expectations.
• Benchmark maturity. Use the ICO checklists to score current practices and schedule remediation plans, prioritizing gaps in high-risk processing activities.

Sources

• ICO Accountability Framework
• ICO blog: Strengthening accountability in data protection

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