The initiative to create a global database of IAF CertSearch management system certificates belongs to the IAF International Accreditation Forum, whose members in September 2022 called for the approval of new approaches aimed at facilitating the search and verification of CM certificates in real time.
The revised principles oblige the accreditation bodies that have signed the IAF MLA Agreement, as well as the CM certification bodies accredited by them, to be present in the IAF CertSearch database, regularly uploading information about accreditation certificates and accredited certificates to it.
Today, at an online meeting with the participation of the head of the Monitoring and Analysis Department of the NAC, Aidos Nuryshev, and IT specialists of the NAC, Nigel Johnston, a member of the IAF DMC Database Management Committee, spoke about the advantages that a quick search and identification of CM certificates under the auspices of the IAF provides for overcoming barriers in mutual cooperation, combating fraudulent certification schemes.
According to N. Johnston, a number of developed IAF member countries, such as Italy, have legislated the need to upload all accredited CM certificates to this database and demonstrated an algorithm for checking from the point of view of a participant in trading operations whether a particular organization has a CM certificate.
The representative of the IAF answered the questions of colleagues from Kazakhstan, and contacts were exchanged for technical and methodological assistance in integrating information about NAC-accredited CM certification bodies and their accredited certificates into the IAF CertSearch system.
For reference: The National Accreditation Center has been a full member of the IAF International Accreditation Forum since 2013, a signatory of the IAF MLA Multilateral Recognition Agreement on Accreditation of ISO/IEC 17021 (9001) Management System certification bodies since 2017.