DIN EN ISO/IEC 17024:2012-11

This standard contains principles and requirements for a body certifying persons against specific requirements. This includes requirements for the development and maintenance of a certification scheme for persons. Certification of persons can only occur when there is a certification scheme. The certification scheme is designed to supplement the requirements included in this document and include those requirements that the market needs or desires, or that are required by governments. The requirements specified in this document ensure that certification bodies for persons operating certification schemes for persons operate in a consistent, comparable and reliable manner. Accreditation of the certification body for persons is a means to provide additional trust for the performance of the certification body. The underlying International Standard corresponds to the revision of ISO/IEC 17024:2003. The International Standard ISO/IEC 17024 has been developed with the objective of achieving and promoting a globally accepted benchmark for organizations operating certification of persons. Certification for persons is one means of providing assurance that the certified person meets the requirements of the certification scheme. Confidence in the respective certification schemes for persons is achieved by means of a globally accepted process of assessment and periodic re-assessments of the competence of certified persons. In contrast to other types of conformity assessment bodies, such as management system certification bodies, one of the characteristic functions of the certification body for persons is to conduct an examination. It uses objective criteria to measure competence and scoring. While it is recognized that such an examination, if well planned and structured by the certification body for persons, can substantially serve to ensure impartiality of operations and reduce the risk of a conflict of interest, additional requirements have been included in this International Standard. The underlying International Standard ISO/IEC 17024 has been prepared by Working Group 30 of ISO/CASCO in collaboration with Technical Committee CEN/CENELEC/TC 1. Regarding the German collaboration the responsible committee is Subcommittee NA 147-00-03-30 UA "Personenzertifizierung" ("Certification of persons") at Working Committee NA 147-00-03 AA "Zertifizierungsgrundlagen (Grundlagen der Konformitätsbewertung)" ("Basic principles for certification (Basic principles for conformity assessment)") of NQSZ.