Security News > 2020 > August > Thousands of ISO certifications at risk of lapsing due to halted re-certification audits

Thousands of valuable ISO management system certifications earned by UK companies may now be at risk because auditors from Certification Bodies may not have been able to attend organizations' premises to conduct essential re-certification audits during the current coronavirus pandemic.

Worldwide, hundreds of thousands of certifications are at risk of lapsing as lockdown conditions look set to continue for the foreseeable future.

To restore their certifications, affected organizations may incur financial costs easily three times higher than they were expecting to pay for their annual audits - plus considerably higher levels of time and resources - as well as having to remove any reference to their certifications from their websites and other collateral in the meantime.

"Across just three of the five ISO management system standards that we help organizations to achieve, an average of 2,500 UK certifications per month could be at risk of lapsing due to the break in audit activities - never mind all other ISO standards, and notwithstanding any backlog of audits, whenever they can resume at scale," said Peter Rossi, Director at InfoSaaS. Some organizations may decide not to be re-audited.

Worldwide there are over 870,000 certifications for ISO9001 alone, indicating that - six months on from the start of lockdowns - over 70,000 per month may be at risk of lapsing should surveillance audits remain halted.

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