UKAS CertCheck: What You Need To Know

What is CertCheck and what is its primary function?

The primary function of CertCheck is to provide a centralised service that aims to give more confidence to people who rely on the assurance provided by UKAS accredited certification. This will in turn help combat fraudulent claims of UKAS accredited certification, and safeguard from organisations who attempt to portray non-accredited certification as holding the same value as accredited certification.

How does it work?

The verification database will allow users to check that a claim of holding UKAS accredited certification is valid by searching for the certificate number or registered trading name of the certified organisation.

This will bring up the details of the certification held being displayed; including the scope of certification, date issued, locations covered and the awarding Certification Body.

What is required from Certification Bodies for the database system to be functional?

For the CertCheck system to function correctly and accurately, it is crucial for the database to contain details of all organisations that hold UKAS-accredited certification. Therefore, all Certification Bodies accredited by UKAS to ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015 will be required to provide data on their certified clients and keep this up to date. This will ensure that the system works properly and generates accurate results. For instance, when an organisation can be found on CertCheck, the user can be confident that they hold UKAS-accredited certification.

What solutions does it provide?

CertCheck provides a verification solution that identifies whether an organisation holds accredited certification to certain ISO standards, such as:

• ISO 9001 (Quality Management)
• ISO 14001 (Environmental Management)
• ISO 45001 (Health and Safety Management)

Is the database system secure?

UKAS is committed to using services that are secure and adopting effective security standards that align with industry best practices in the areas of security and service management.

Rest assured that the following key measures are in place to ensure data security and integrity of the UKAS CertCheck database:

• The CertCheck system is fully hosted and backed up on servers based within the UK and uses a variety of physical and technological security measures to prevent unauthorised access to or misuse of the data.
• It is not possible for anyone to generate or extract lists of certified organisations from UKAS CertCheck and as the system contains no contact details of certified organisations, it cannot be used to support any mass marketing or communications.

What are the main benefits of using this service?

• Increased customer and stakeholder confidence in UKAS accredited certification, combatting fraud and misleading claims.
• An easy-to-use and effective customer-friendly solution to aid in the verification of claims of accredited certification.
• Improved and simplified supplier vetting processes in terms of verifying claims of accredited certification.
• Confidence in UKAS accredited certification, combatting fraud and misleading claims.
• Streamlining of supply chain management and procurement processes.
• Differentiation from uncertified competition.

 

Access to CertCheck:

Click here to access the UKAS CertCheck database directly.