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Transfer impact assessment

Use this skill when personal data goes, or will go, to a recipient outside the EEA, or someone asks "do we need a TIA", "transfer impact assessment", "SCCs for this vendor", "can we use this US vendor under GDPR", "international data transfer assessment", "Schrems II assessment" or "our customer asked for our transfer assessments". Confirms whether there is a transfer at all, maps the full chain including remote access and sub-processors, identifies the transfer mechanism, structures the destination law assessment from sourced material, proposes supplementary measures and drafts a documented assessment with a review trigger.

PrivacyGDPR

Use this for each transfer, or each group of transfers to the same importer under the same mechanism, before data flows and whenever the importer, the data or the destination law changes. You get two kinds of file in a new folder, ./transfer-impact-assessment/: a spreadsheet you can open in Excel listing every transfer, with the receiving company, country, data, purpose and how the data is reached (transfer-inventory.csv), and one written assessment per receiving company that counsel can check line by line (<importer>-tia.md). This skill drafts for a human to review and sign; this skill never marks a control effective. The destination law conclusion and the decision to transfer belong to the exporter's privacy lead and counsel.

Inputs to gather

Read the record of processing activities, the vendor and sub-processor lists, the data processing agreements and their transfer clauses, the importer's published sub-processor list, security documentation and transparency report if one exists. Ask the reader, in one message: what data goes to the importer and why, whether the company is controller or processor for it, where the importer and its support staff access the data from, and whether counsel or the importer has supplied any assessment of the destination country's law.

Step 1: confirm there is a transfer

Under the EDPB's guidance, a transfer exists when an exporter subject to the GDPR for the processing discloses or makes personal data available to a separate importer located in a third country. Remote access counts: a support engineer viewing EU-hosted data from outside the EEA is a transfer, even if the servers sit in the EU. Map the full chain in the transfer spreadsheet (transfer-inventory.csv): importer, country, data categories, data subjects, purpose, access type (storage, remote access, onward transfer), sub-processors and their countries. Onward transfers by the importer are part of the assessment. Cross-check the spreadsheet against the record of processing and the sub-processor list, and list any transfer missing from either: an assessment of an unrecorded transfer protects nothing.

Step 2: identify the mechanism

Chapter V of the GDPR offers three routes, in this order of preference:

  • Adequacy decision (Article 45): the destination, or the importer's certification under a framework recognised by one, is covered. No transfer impact assessment is needed for that route; record the decision relied on and check that the importer's certification is active and covers the data type concerned.
  • Appropriate safeguards (Article 46): standard contractual clauses, binding corporate rules or another listed tool. This is where the assessment is needed. The standard contractual clauses themselves ask the parties to document it and make it available to the supervisory authority on request.
  • Derogations (Article 49): narrow and for occasional transfers. Do not rely on them for a recurring vendor relationship.

Step 3: assess the destination law and practice

This is the part an agent must not invent. Structure it and source every statement:

  • Which laws in the destination could let public authorities access the data, and does this importer fall within their scope (for example, as a provider of electronic communication or cloud services)?
  • What does the importer report about access requests it has received: numbers, types, whether it challenges them, whether it publishes a transparency report?
  • How sensitive is the data and how likely is it to interest authorities? HR records of an EU sales team differ from bulk communications content.

Use the importer's written answers, official publications of the Commission, the EDPB and supervisory authorities, and counsel's analysis, quoting the source for each finding. Where no source exists, write "not assessed" and route the question to counsel.

Step 4: choose supplementary measures

If the assessment shows the destination law could undermine the safeguards for this data, propose measures that actually close the gap:

  • Technical: encryption in transit and at rest with keys held only in the EEA, pseudonymisation where the importer does not need identities, data minimisation, restricting remote access by location.
  • Contractual: transparency about access requests, an obligation to challenge disproportionate requests, notification to the exporter where lawful.
  • Organisational: the importer's policy for handling government requests, access logging, periodic review.

Rule of thumb from the EDPB guidance: where the importer needs the data in clear text and problematic access laws apply to it, contractual and organisational measures alone rarely suffice. Say so plainly, and list the options: change the architecture, choose another vendor, or stop the transfer.

Step 5: write the assessment

Draft the written assessment for this importer (<importer>-tia.md): the transfer description, the mechanism, the law and practice findings with sources, the measures in place and proposed, the residual risk, the open questions for counsel, and a re-assessment trigger (new sub-processor or country, new data category, change in destination law or adequacy status, a relevant ruling). Name an owner role for watching those triggers and a maximum review interval, for example yearly. End with a blank decision line for the owner to fill in: decided by (role), date, version, and where the file is kept so it can be produced to the supervisory authority on request. Where the company is processor, record whether and how its controller customers are told about the transfer and the outcome.

What good looks like

  • The best practitioner finds the remote access transfers first: follow-the-sun support, offshore development teams, and vendors whose engineers can reach EU-hosted data.
  • The common mistake is a template assessment that concludes "low risk" for every vendor, with no source for any statement about foreign law. The tell: identical paragraphs across importers in different countries, and no mention of whether the importer falls within the scope of the access laws.
  • Good output lets counsel check every claim against a cited source and separates what was verified from what was assumed.

Framework lookups

If ISMS Copilot is connected to your agent (MCP server https://account.ismscopilot.com/v1/account/mcp), ask it the framework question with create_conversation (mode think, answer_format: decision) and keep one conversation for this task. Send only a short question in your own words, show it to the user first, and never include file contents, secrets, personal data or evidence. If it is not connected, check the official text of the framework yourself; this skill does not restate it. Set it up: https://www.ismscopilot.com/mcp?ref=grcskills-transfer-impact-assessment

Rules

  • MUST cite a source for every statement about destination law or importer practice.
  • MUST include remote access and onward transfers in the transfer map.
  • MUST write outputs only inside ./transfer-impact-assessment/ and ask before overwriting.
  • NEVER conclude that a transfer may proceed; the exporter's privacy lead and counsel decide.
  • NEVER rely on a derogation for a recurring transfer without counsel's documented view.
  • NEVER copy personal data or contract text beyond what identifies the clause relied on.