VERIFYING AUTHENTICITY OF CERTIFICATES - HOW TO GO ABOUT IT ?

The world market is full of private certification bodies issuing certificates to industry and it is important to distinguish an authentic certificate from many unauthentic, fake or fraudulent certificates going around.

How to distinguish between authentic and fake certificate is the common query raised by industry members often during industry meets.

An authentic certificate should contain the following:

Name and address of the organization certified
Scope of certification describing its activities under certification – e.g. production, packing and sale of dairy products like …….(broad list of products)
Standard (or sometimes scheme or regulation) against which certification is granted e.g. ISO 9001 or ISO 22000 (standard) or AS 9100 or FSSC 22000 (scheme) – in general guidance standards are not amenable to certification – these have to be formal, requirement standards or specifications
Date of issue and expiry of certificate
Unique identification number of the certificate
Name and address of the certification body (CB)
Logo of the certification body
Accreditation symbol indicating the name of the accreditation body (AB) which has accredited the certification body (in most countries, in the absence of any law requiring certification bodies to register, accreditation is the only way of recognizing a competent, authentic certification body)
IAF Mark – indicating that the certificate is covered under the Multilateral Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MLA) of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and hence is internationally equivalent and acceptable in the market

In order to judge authenticity, the names of member ABs of IAF can be seen on its website www.iaf.nu – it also gives information on which accreditation bodies are signatories to IAF MLAs for specific schemes – QMS or EMS or FSMS. Once you locate the AB in a country, you can go to its website from the link given on IAF website and then on AB’s website verify if the CB is accredited. Then from the CB, you can verify the certificate because under international norms, CBs are obliged to help verify certificates issued by them. In case the certificate is issued under a scheme like IATF 16949 or AS 9100, it is possible to verify the certificate through the scheme owners also.

About Mr Anil Jauhri :

M Tech Civil Engineering – IIT, Kanpur
Former CEO , NABCB – National Accreditation Board for Certification bodies for 6 ½ years

– CDM Accreditation Panel Member at UNFCCC for12 years

– Member, Yoga Certification Board, Ministry of AYUSH

Adviser, NABCB, Quality Council of India for 4 years

Director, NABCB for 3 years

Examples of unauthentic certificates and how a genuine certificate looks like can be downloaded from this document –

http://ccc-consultants.org/certificate-authentication_general_apr-2020/