ISO 42001 Reporting of Concerns Procedure Template
The ISO 42001 Reporting of Concerns Procedure Template is a ready-to-use procedure document designed to help organizations define and implement a structured process for reporting concerns about their role in relation to AI systems.
This template supports AIMS implementation and aligns with ISO/IEC 42001 Annex A.3.3 and Annex B.3.3 (and ISO/IEC 37002), including confidentiality, anonymity, non-retaliation, qualified investigation, management escalation and response mechanisms.
The procedure is especially useful for organizations that develop, provide, deploy, procure, integrate or use AI systems and need a documented mechanism for responsible AI concern reporting.
Required Procedure for concern reporting
AI systems can create new types of risks, including concerns around fairness, transparency, privacy, security, safety, human oversight, misuse, accountability and unintended impacts. Organizations implementing ISO/IEC 42001 need a reliable way for employees, contractors and other relevant parties to raise these concerns safely and consistently.
This ISO 42001 Reporting of Concerns Procedure Template helps your organization establish that process.
The template defines how AI-related concerns are reported, handled, escalated and resolved. It includes practical drafting guidance, editable placeholder text and a structure that can be adapted to your organization’s existing compliance, ethics, whistleblowing, incident management or grievance processes.
What This Template Covers
The ISO 42001 Reporting of Concerns Procedure covers the full lifecycle of AI concern handling, including:
- Purpose and scope of the concern reporting process.
- Types of AI-related concerns that should be reported.
- Reporting channels and intake methods.
- Confidentiality and anonymity requirements.
- Non-retaliation and protection from reprisals.
- Roles and responsibilities for the AIMS Owner, Compliance, management and investigators.
- Initial review, triage and severity classification.
- Escalation rules for urgent, serious or systemic concerns.
- Investigation and resolution process.
- Response timeframes and communication expectations.
- Corrective action and improvement linkage.
- Management reporting and trend analysis.
- Recordkeeping and documented information requirements.
- Review and continual improvement of the procedure.
- Drafting notes to help tailor the procedure to your organization.
ISO 42001 Alignment
This template is primarily aligned with ISO/IEC 42001 Annex A.3.3 – Reporting of Concerns and the related implementation guidance in Annex B.3.3.
It also supports several core ISO/IEC 42001 AIMS requirements, including:
| ISO/IEC 42001 Reference | Relevance |
| Clause 4.4 – Artificial Intelligence Management System | Supports the operation and maintenance of the AIMS through a defined concern reporting process. |
| Clause 5.1 – Leadership and Commitment | Demonstrates management commitment to responsible AI governance, escalation and accountability. |
| Clause 5.3 – Organizational Roles, Responsibilities and Authorities | Defines who is responsible for receiving, investigating, escalating and resolving concerns. |
| Clause 6.1 – Actions to Address Risks and Opportunities | Allows reported concerns to feed into AI risk management, risk treatment and improvement actions. |
| Clause 7.2 – Competence | Supports the requirement for qualified or competent persons to handle reports and investigations. |
| Clause 7.3 – Awareness | Supports awareness of the concern reporting mechanism among relevant persons. |
| Clause 7.4 – Communication | Defines reporting, escalation, response and management communication requirements. |
| Clause 7.5 – Documented Information | Establishes the procedure as controlled documented information. |
| Clause 8.1 – Operational Planning and Control | Helps manage AI-related concerns during operational use and lifecycle activities. |
| Clause 8.2 – AI Risk Assessment | Reported concerns may trigger new or updated AI risk assessments. |
| Clause 8.3 – AI Risk Treatment | Concerns may lead to new or revised AI risk treatment measures. |
| Clause 8.4 – AI System Impact Assessment | Concerns about affected persons or groups may trigger impact assessment review. |
| Clause 9.1 – Monitoring, Measurement, Analysis and Evaluation | Concern trends, overdue cases and response performance can be monitored as AIMS indicators. |
| Clause 9.3 – Management Review | Significant concerns and trends may be reported to management review. |
| Clause 10 – Improvement | Substantiated concerns may result in corrective actions or continual improvement activities. |
| Annex A.3.3 – Reporting of Concerns | Main control supported by this procedure. |
| Annex B.3.3 – Reporting of Concerns | Provides implementation guidance reflected in the procedure structure. |
Questions or Custom Requests
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