ISO/IEC 27035 FAQ Retained Logs

Start with the operational decision: define what Retained Logs means in your ISO/IEC 27035 scope, who owns it, and what record proves the decision is current.

For retained incident logs, decide in advance which event records, timestamps, triage notes, escalation decisions, containment actions, recovery evidence, and lessons-learned records must be preserved, who can access them, and when legal or privacy review is needed.

The evidence should show the process operating. For this artifact, the strongest record usually includes incident policy, response plan, severity matrix, triage records, escalation logs, notifications, containment and recovery notes, lessons learned, and Retained Logs.

Avoid evidence that only repeats a requirement. A reviewer should be able to see the actual owner, date, system, supplier, AI system, service, incident, risk, or control sample behind the answer.

The person who can fund, operate, and correct the process should own the decision; governance should review consistency and exceptions.

For high-impact changes, approval should include the teams affected by the evidence: security, privacy, resilience, supplier management, AI governance, legal, risk, or business service owners as relevant.

Review it at planned intervals and whenever the underlying scope, service, supplier, control, risk, AI system, personal data flow, incident process, or customer commitment changes.

A stale record is worse than a short record. If the facts change, update the evidence and mark what changed so the next reviewer can trust the page.