Guide: Aligning Your Public Policies with Industry Standards (SOC 2, ISO 27001, etc.)
As security and compliance become increasingly critical to business success, companies are expected to demonstrate how their internal policies align with industry standards such as SOC 2, ISO/IEC 27001, NIST CSF, and others. Public-facing policies—like your Privacy Policy, Information Security Policy, or Responsible Disclosure Policy—are often the first documents your customers, partners, and auditors will review to evaluate your trustworthiness and maturity.
In this guide, we’ll walk through how to align your public policies with leading industry standards, and how our platform can help you keep them up-to-date, audit-ready, and seamlessly integrated with your customer-facing compliance efforts.
Why Alignment Matters
Security frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001 are designed to ensure your company operates securely, protects data, and manages risk. Publishing policies that align with these frameworks serves multiple purposes:
- Build trust with customers by showing you follow recognized best practices.
- Reduce audit friction by keeping your documentation consistent with control requirements.
- Speed up security reviews by enabling automatic mapping to security questionnaires.
- Improve internal clarity by codifying practices that support your compliance posture.
Step 1: Identify Required Policies by Framework
Different standards call for different policies. Here’s a quick overview of commonly required or recommended public-facing documents:
| Framework | Common Required Policies |
|---|---|
| SOC 2 (Trust Services Criteria) | Information Security Policy, Access Control Policy, Incident Response Policy |
| ISO/IEC 27001 | ISMS Policy, Risk Assessment & Treatment Policy, Data Retention Policy |
| NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) | Risk Management Policy, Security Awareness Policy |
| GDPR/CCPA | Privacy Policy, Data Processing Agreements, Cookie Policy |
Understanding the expectations of the framework(s) you’re targeting is the first step toward aligning your public documentation.
Step 2: Map Your Existing Policies to Controls
Once you’ve identified the relevant policies, review their contents and map them to the relevant compliance controls.
For example:
- SOC 2 CC6.1 requires you to define and communicate roles and responsibilities related to security. This should be reflected in your Information Security Policy.
- ISO 27001 A.5.1.1 requires policies for information security to be approved by management, published, and communicated.
If your current policies don’t explicitly address these points, it’s time to update them.
Tip: Our platform automatically analyzes your policies and maps them to over a dozen frameworks, helping you quickly identify gaps and overlaps.
Step 3: Centralize and Version Control Your Policies
To maintain consistency and accountability:
- Store all policies in a centralized, version-controlled repository.
- Assign ownership to individuals or teams.
- Establish a regular review cycle (typically annually or bi-annually).
- Track changes to demonstrate an audit trail.
Our product makes this easy by offering a policy management tool where your public policies are stored, versioned, and accessible both to your internal teams and external stakeholders.
Step 4: Use AI to Maintain Consistency Across Tools
Keeping your policies aligned with customer questionnaires, trust pages, and compliance reports can be time-consuming. Our AI-powered system allows you to:
- Automatically populate questionnaire answers using the latest version of your public policies.
- Detect inconsistencies between your policies and how you describe your controls elsewhere.
- Flag outdated language or missing sections based on the selected standards.
This ensures that what you publish externally matches what you attest to in security reviews.
Step 5: Publish Policies on Your Trust Page
Once your policies are aligned and reviewed, publish them on your company’s Trust Page. This should include:
- Links to your major public policies.
- Last updated dates for transparency.
- Optionally, a downloadable compliance report bundle.
Your Trust Page becomes a living hub that showcases your commitment to transparency and accountability.
Final Thoughts
Aligning your public policies with frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001 is more than a checkbox—it’s a signal to your customers and partners that you take security seriously.
With our platform, you can streamline this process by:
- Managing all public policies in one place
- Ensuring alignment with industry standards using AI
- Automatically answering customer questionnaires
- Keeping your Trust Page accurate and up to date
Ready to align your public policies and boost your compliance posture?
👉 Start with a free trial to see how our tools can simplify your workflow.