One of UKAS’ current Strategic Priorities is to develop a secure, online and free-to-use database of certifications that have been issued by the accredited Certification Bodies. This database will present information on each organization holding accredited certification from a UKAS-accredited Certification Body, including details of the organization, scope and the awarding Certification Body.
As such, the database will allow organizations, public bodies and Government agencies that require and rely upon the confidence provided by accredited certification to easily verify the validity of a certificate directly from UKAS.
In its initial stages, the database will be restricted to Management Systems Certification, however, Product and Personnel Certification is planned for future inclusion.
Value to the accredited certification
This database will provide additional value to the accredited certification community by:
- Being used by regulators and manufacturers, who require accredited certification throughout their supply chain.
- Making it easier to identify (and therefore prevent) fraudulent certificates.
- Being linked to other organizations or systems that are used to check company credentials.
- Identifying market trends and industry metrics.
- Supporting the UKAS risk-based assessment program.
- Enabling uploads to relevant third-party databases, such as the IAF Cert Search, NHSS, etc.
Certification Bodies in Management Systems
The database once launched in 2022 will be available at no additional charge to UKAS customers
It is critical to the success of this database that the customers have confidence in the system and in how UKAS will operate it.
To this end, UKAS has engaged heavily with the accredited Certification Bodies in Management Systems, to ensure they fully understand the requirements and that the database is flexible, with low overheads for Certification Bodies uploading data.
As a non-profit distributing organization, UKAS will not commercialize the system. The database once launched in 2022 will be available at no additional charge to UKAS customers.
Penetration prevention
Security is also a priority for this project, and it has been essential to prevent data mining via the downloading of lists. Security measures to prevent this include a limitation on daily searches, a search requirement of Certificate Number or Company Name with an auto-suggest limit of 10, meaning full words are required to conduct a search.
Penetration prevention has been ensured through 2 millisecond Bot Protection, Amazon Web Services AI Systems, two-factor authentication, as well as regular penetration testing. Additionally, suppliers hold ISO 27001 accredited certification, the database is fully GDPR compliant, and data and backups are stored on UK servers. UKAS is currently in the testing phase of this project, and it is anticipated that the database will be launched in 2022.