Insights
The Illusion of Certificates
SOC 2, HIPAA, and HITRUST are NOT vendor contract compliance. Many vendors incorrectly believe this, exposing their enterprise customers to massive hidden risk.
By Dominic CischkeFebruary 4, 20261 min read
SOC 2, HIPAA, and HITRUST are NOT vendor contract compliance.
But many vendors (we've talked to) incorrectly believe this and it exposes their enterprise customers to massive hidden risk.
On the surface it's an easy misconception to form, but when you dig deep you find how stark the difference is.
The Difference
These certifications directly cover an extremely limited set of contract requirements.
And in most cases of any overlap, it is topical at best.
A prime (but certainly not unique) example of this is background check requirements.
The SOC 2 background check "requirement" is usually something along the lines of: "The company performs background checks on prospective personnel prior to their first day of work." That's it.
And how about the enterprise contract? I've personally managed contracts where just the personnel background check obligations are 3+ pages of full contract text naming incredibly specific check types and ongoing cadences.
Addressing Risk
When vendors solely trust in certifications, they're wildly out of compliance with MOST of the contract. And this is happening across vendors today.
When vendors think this way, their enterprise partners bear incredible risk too. And enterprises have few useful tools at their disposal to ensure these vendors are fully compliant.
Harper helps resolve this pervasive vendor misconception and provides enterprises with the granular visibility they need to manage vendor risk.
Harper integrates directly with your vendors to help them organize and track compliance with every exact contract requirement in a purpose-built platform.
Enterprise vendor compliance teams then have this real-time data available in their Harper instance to instantly oversee, analyze, and take action across the entire vendor network.
You've got more important work to do than reminding vendors of contract obligations and chasing vendor documents. Let Harper unlock your team to focus on their most important work.
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Frequently asked questions
- Is SOC 2 the same as vendor contract compliance?
- No. SOC 2 attests to a limited set of controls at a point in time. A vendor contract typically contains 150+ specific, ongoing obligations - background-check cadences, exclusion-list monitoring, insurance and additional-insured requirements, SLAs, and more - that a SOC 2 report does not cover.
- Does HIPAA or HITRUST prove a vendor is compliant with its contract?
- No. HIPAA and HITRUST address privacy and security safeguards, not the full scope of a commercial contract. Overlap with contract requirements is topical at best, so a certified vendor can still be out of compliance with most of its contractual obligations.
- How can an enterprise verify true vendor contract compliance?
- By tracking every discrete contract obligation as a monitored, evidence-backed task rather than relying on a certificate. Harper integrates with vendors to track each requirement and gives the enterprise real-time visibility into network-wide compliance.