Get a quote
GRC Wave Graphics

Privacy Audits for Data Protection Compliance

What is a privacy audit?

A GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) compliance audit is a systematic and independent assessment of an organisation’s compliance with the GDPR.

Our privacy audits help you identify compliance gaps, reduce regulatory risk, and strengthen accountability across your organisation and supply chain with clear reporting to support internal governance and regulator expectations.

  • Identify privacy compliance gaps.
  • Validate supplier handling of data.
  • Evidence compliance decisions with clear audit records.
  • Reduce legal and reputational risk.

Audit services overview

Third-party questionnaires are not enough. We’ll grade your suppliers and deliver an audit programme ensuring they adhere to the terms of the contract, with data protection regulations and with other relevant codes of conduct or law. While the audit focuses on data and security, we can factor in other compliance areas, including ESG and health and safety.

TOMs (technical and organisational measures) refer to the security measures, policies and procedures implemented by an organisation to safeguard personal data. Under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), there are specific requirements for these controls, which our audit will evaluate your organisation against.

Ensure your CCTV use is compliant with UK data protection law and the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice 2013. Our auditor will review your CCTV use (including an on-site visit) and compare it to the regulation to give you an accurate picture of compliance.

This service is for organisations that sell personal data to third parties. Our audit ensures the sold data is processed in line with the contract, such as with the consent the data subject gave. It also ensures your customers comply with your contract and don’t owe additional royalties.

This audit ensures that the data your organisation buys (e.g. marketing lists) is from a legitimate data supply. For example, checking the legitimate basis and transparency of the processing.

Audit process

All of our audits are bespoke, so we will assess your needs and design an audit programme specifically for them. Typically, it would follow these steps:

01 Understand your requirements

We’ll discuss your needs and design an audit programme to suit. This may be just one audit, or hundreds, depending on the project.

02 Running the audits

Once you’ve approved the audit programme, we will arrange the audits (either with you or the third party being audited) and keep you up to date with our progress and the outcomes.

03 Reports

For each audit, you’ll receive a report explaining the findings.

Why choose GRC Solutions?

Custom Audits

Bespoke audit services delivered according to your specifications

Expert Auditors

Audit programmes designed and delivered by experienced, qualified auditors.

Continuous Support

Ongoing support to ensure practices remain up to date (depending on audit level) - we’ll help ensure you maintain or improve compliance levels.

Industry Experience

Experience in auditing across many industries, such as credit reference agencies, postal services etc..

FAQs

Usually, we need 1–3 days of audit time, with report writing separately.

A GDPR gap analysis assesses compliance with the GDPR. A privacy audit focuses on company policies, codes of conduct, and relevant industry and membership rules. The scope is therefore definable by the organisation.

It depends on the processes involved and should be part of a risk-based assessment. Standard practice would involve auditing higher-risk suppliers/clients on an annual basis.

The audit can be as focused or as general as needed, as long as the requirements are clearly articulated to allow compliance with them to be checked.

This depends on the nature of the audit but can include system demos, process maps, policies and procedures, invoices, billing reports, system reports on data usage, information security certifications, and training records.

Yes, we can audit as many or as few suppliers as needed.

Yes, we’ll provide clear recommendations in our audit report and can work with clients to understand these and track their implementation as necessary.

Remote and on-site audits are available, in the UK or overseas if needed.

How we helped a multinational overcome processor data misuse

One of our longstanding customers is a multinational data analytics and consumer credit reporting company.

1 The problem

This organisation didn’t have a dedicated auditing team but needed to conduct an extensive audit programme to establish whether and to what extent data processors were misusing its data and adhering to other contract terms.

2 The solution

We conducted an extensive audit programme of 12 audits per year on average, checking against contractual obligations, data protection regulations and ISO 27001 security controls.

3 The result

We gave the customer the visibility it needed, allowing its compliance team to mitigate the risk and prevent non-compliance by data processors.

Discover what GRC Solutions can do for your business

Connect with one of our experts to find the perfect solution for your security, privacy and compliance needs.

We support organisations across ISO 27001, Cyber Essentials, SOC 2, AI governance, PCI DSS, GDPR and related frameworks, with practical delivery options that can include training, tools and managed services where helpful.

✅ Tailored scoping based on your goals, timelines, and risk profile
✅ Independent, practical advice focused on what works for your organisation
✅ Support available end to end, from initial assessment through to implementation and ongoing assurance