Digitalisation of accreditation services

Since 2020, accreditation bodies worldwide have increasingly digitalised their services. Accreditation has followed a universal quest for leaner and more efficient business processes, higher productivity, and lower costs. At the same time, digitalisation aims to improve the customer experience and communication as well as the transparency of the accreditation system.

The recent Corona pandemic was a significant catalyst of digitalisation in accreditation and conformity assessment. Accredia, the Italian accreditation body, reports that since 2020 it has had to conduct distance audits in an increasingly structured manner. The remote auditing technologies already used and promptly implemented have proven to be an effective tool for maintaining business operations and an opportunity for the future, both for Accredia and accredited bodies and laboratories. Consideration has been given to how IT tools can be combined in a balanced and efficient way with the essential elements of the audits, i.e., the individual skills of the auditors and the organisational capacity of Accredia, to analyse the reference context and manage the associated risks. [1]

Dematerialisation of the accreditation process

A central element of the digitalisation of accreditation is dematerialisation, i.e., the paperless, electronic processing of all documents in the entire accreditation process.

In the case of Accredia, at the end of 2020, the conversion of accreditation certificates from paper to digital was first completed for the accreditations of the Testing Laboratories Division and then for all certification bodies and calibration laboratories. The data of the new electronic certificates can be read using a QR code, making it possible to check in real time the validity status, the date of issue and the expiry date, as well as the suspension and withdrawal of accreditation. The faster updating of databases, the elimination of paper and the reduction of logistics services with economic and environmental savings are among the first results of the digitalisation process with which Accredia aims to promote transparency, reliability, and simplification in the field of conformity assessment. [1]

The Colombian accreditation body ONAC reports a similar development. In 2020, ONAC launched SIPSO, the Service Provision Information System. With SIPSO, ONAC aims to digitise all phases of the accreditation process and facilitate interaction between conformity assessment bodies, assessment teams and ONAC’s administration. This ensures better traceability and flexibility in the coherent implementation of individual accreditation systems.

So far, the following five out of eight modules and part of module six of the accreditation process have been digitised, namely the (1) initial registration, (2) accreditation application, (3) application review, (4) financial offer, (5) order acceptance and the (6) Stage 1 assessment. Following this, ONAC is working on the development and integration of the remaining activities of the module (6), which correspond to Stage 2, review and attestation (7), and closure of the service (8). See the figure on ONAC’s accreditation process in SIPSO:

Additionally, ONAC is not only concerned with digitalising its processes but also with dematerialising accreditation certificates. Its goal is to make interacting with the information they contain more helpful and accessible for interested parties. In future, this information will be validated and readable in real-time from any economy in the world.

Parties interested in accreditation data.

The conformity assessment and accreditation bodies themselves are the first to benefit from the dematerialisation of the accreditation process. At the same time, digital accreditation systems facilitate the information of interested third parties. First, these include companies that want to ascertain the validity of the certificates submitted by their suppliers. Market surveillance bodies need to be informed about the validity and scope of accreditations. Finally, the scientific community, concerned with the significance and impact of accreditation on global trade and sustainable development, is interested in data on accreditation.

Availability of accreditation information

According to the standard ISO 17011:2017, “Conformity assessment. Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies” [3], accreditation bodies must provide information on accredited conformity assessment bodies. This includes the name and address of the accredited body and the accreditation’s scope and validity range. A unique accreditation identification is also required. At the same time, it must be ensured that no proprietary information is published. The accreditation bodies fulfil their obligation to provide information by posting the data of all accredited conformity assessment bodies on their websites.

So far, there is no guideline on the publication and accessibility of accreditation data. The websites of the various accreditation bodies worldwide differ considerably in their user-friendliness. A general shortcoming is the need for more machine readability of the data. This particularly applies to the annexes in PDF format, which describe the scope of accreditation. This creates considerable obstacles to the systematic evaluation and use of the data.

Information platforms on accreditation and conformity assessment

In recent years, there have been various initiatives to provide information on accreditation and conformity assessment. The motivation for this arose from the increased circulation of forged certificates and organisations falsely claiming accreditation or affiliation to accreditation bodies. Such practices pose a risk to procuring bodies and end users of accredited certification services and reduce confidence in accreditation claims. [4]

The International Accreditation Forum (IAF), the worldwide cooperation body of accreditation bodies for management systems, has developed IAF CertSearch. On this global database, users can search and verify the status of accredited certifications issued by a certification body accredited by an accreditation body member of the IAF. Covering the scope of ISO/IEC 17021-1 accreditations, users can check every accredited management system certification from any economy in any language in real-time. [5]

IAF Cert Search information can be used by companies that want to check whether the certificates they present to their suppliers are valid. It also provides accreditation bodies with information in a protected platform area that they can use for analytics on certification bodies, certified entities, certifications, certified sites, verification activity on Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) and their certificates and benchmarking with other Accreditation Bodies (ABs).

An issue with IAF Cert Search is that not all accreditation and certification bodies participate in the system. According to IAF, in 2021, the database contained only 35% of accredited management system certificates. [6] Nevertheless, a new mandatory requirement for CABs to participate in IAF CertSearch will soon change participation routes.

The accreditation body of the United Kingdom, UKAS, has published its own verification system, CertCheck. [7] Here, companies and interested parties can check whether management system certificates legitimately claim accreditation of the conformity assessment body by UKAS. In this case, coverage is complete but limited to UKAS accreditations alone.

Traditionally there has been considerable resistance from certification and accreditation bodies regarding the publication of detailed information. Some certification bodies fear competitors could poach their clients by knowing about them. At the same time, certification bodies are interested in raising awareness of fake certifications. This creates a challenge for operators to allow the validation of certificates without unnecessarily revealing trade secrets. In particular, the systematic analysis of certified companies’ data should be prevented.

However, there is a demand for accreditation and conformity assessment data for analytical purposes. These data are usually aggregated so that inference to a specific company is prevented.

So far, the ISO Survey is still the best data source for management system certification. The Survey collects data from certification bodies accredited by IAF MLA signatories. The data of the ISO Survey, published annually since 1990, shows the distribution of 16 ISO management system standards by country and sector. However, the ISO Survey does not make its data sources transparent, so caution is required when interpreting the data. [8]

The ambition of IAF CertSearch is to eventually replace the ISO Survey by enabling both validation of certificates and statistical analysis of data on certificates, conformity assessment and accreditation bodies.

All platforms described so far follow the path of centralised collection and provision of accreditation and conformity assessment data. In contrast, the Australian accreditation bodies NATA and JAZ-ANS advocate developing a decentralised system based on ISO/IEC GlobalData Standards. Initially, the proposal is limited to Australia but could be spread internationally. [9]

NATA and JAZ-ANS propose to develop a framework for the national exchange of product conformity and certification data compatible with existing and emerging ISO/IEC-based supply chain frameworks. They are working with the global barcode standard provider, GS1, a standards organisation that has already developed identification numbers and barcodes for international trade.

In the following table, we have compiled and compared the different information platforms on accreditation and conformity assessment data:

System	IAF Cert Search	UKAS CertCheck	ISO-Survey	Australian „the framework“-proposal
Owner	IAF	UKAS	ISO	No owner
Purpose	Check the authenticity of claims regarding accredited certifications	Check the authenticity of claims accredited regarding certifications	Counts the number of certificates issued by certification bodies that have been accredited by members of IAF	Facilitate conformity assessment data exchange
Data source	Data uploaded by ABs and accredited CABs	Data uploaded by UKAS accredited CABs	Data provided by CABs in a survey
Data availability	Regularly	Regularly	Point in time (31 of December)	Regularly
Scope	ISO Management Standards	ISO Management Standards	ISO Management Standards	All certificates provided by accredited CABs
Coverage	Worldwide	United Kingdom and UKAS cross-border accredited CABs.	Worldwide	Developed for Australia but expandable globally.
	Partially, as only some of the Abs and CABs share their data.	Complete, as UKAS requires all ISO/IEC 17021-1 CABs it accredits to upload their certification data.	Partially, but soon IAF will require that all ISO/IEC 17021-1 accredited CE upload their certification data.	All certified companies participating in the framework and using identifiers and barcodes.
Governance	Centralized	Centralized	Centralized	Decentralized
Obligations	Voluntary, but intended to become mandatory	Mandatory for all UKAS accredited ISO/IEC 17021-1 CABs	Voluntary	Voluntary
Analytics	Services for ABs and anonymised aggregated analytics for other	UKAS	Data can be analysed by management system standards, countries and sectors	No analytics function foreseen
Costs	Free of charge for small use, otherwise subject to a charge.	Free of charge for small use, otherwise subject to a charge.	Free	Companies may incur costs for generating barcodes and acquiring identification numbers.

The way forward

Dematerialisation of accreditation data is on its way. Accreditation bodies now increasingly offer conformity assessment bodies to manage online accreditation processes. Signatures are done digitally, and even remote audits are increasingly used for evaluation. However, there is still a long way to go before all accreditation services are fully available digitally.

A priority task is to ensure that the accreditation and management system certificates are machine-readable. This also applies to the annexes describing the scopes of accreditation. The existing PDF documents must be supplemented or replaced by machine-readable data such as CSV, JSON, XML, etc. This is a key step in achieving complete dematerialisation.

The accreditation community must agree on uniform identification numbers and barcodes to guarantee accreditation and conformity assessment data interoperability. The Australian proposal to refer to ISO/IEC global data standards is ground-breaking here. In addition, data availability must be more comprehensive than management standards alone. There are no validation platforms for product, test, and calibration certificates. This could be addressed within the framework of the merger process of IAF and ILAC.

Ultimately, the dematerialisation of data is only one necessary step. It is only then sufficient when the use of the data satisfies user needs while considering the legitimate business interests of the certification bodies.

Links to a blog post on related topics:

Harmes-Liedtke, U. (2020), Availability and Transparency of Accreditation Data, GQII, 2020/07/21

A video talk on this topic can be found here:

[1] Accredia (2020), Report of the Accredia Directive Council for 2020, Milano 

[2] ONAC, SIPSO – Sistema de Información de Prestación del Servicio de ONAC (ONAC’s Service Delivery Information System), 

[3] ISO/IEC 17011:2017, Conformity assessment — Requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies

[4] UKAS, Counterfeit certificates and false claims of UKAS accreditation, (retrieved 24 July 2023).

[5] IAF, https://www.iafcertsearch.org

[6] IAF (2021) Q13. Why does IAF CertSearch need to change? Blog post 2 November 2021, 

[7] UKAS, CertCheck, (retrieved 24 July 2023).

[8] ISO, The ISO Survey, https://www.iso.org/the-iso-survey.html (retrieved 24 July 2023).

[9] Hyland, Brett, et al. l (2022), Digitalisation of Conformance and Accreditation Processes – Based on ISO/IEC Global Data Standards, NATA, JAZ-ANZ, GS1 Australia

[10] Open Knowledge Foundation, Open Data Handbook, Glossary, Machine-readable