Confidential, Independence, Impartiality and Integrity Policy

Quality International Certification Issuing Services LLC provides training, certifications, and third-party inspection services by practicing and ensuring confidentiality, independence, impartiality, and integrity during the provision of agreed services. Independence and impartiality are the key components of our business ethics. We adhere to transparent procedures based on ISO 17021:2015 and inspection standards, which contain built-in checks to manage and regulate the services we provide to all of our clients.

We recognize, monitor, and mitigate the following as threats to our integrity, independence, and impartiality:

• Self-Interest Threats
  Arise from an individual or organization acting in their own interest. For example, one potential threat to independence and impartiality is self-interest.
• Self-Review Threats
  Arise when a person or body reviews work done by themselves. Inspecting the client products to whom the inspection body provided inspections would be a self-review threat.
• Familiarity (or Trust) Threats
  Arise when a person or body becomes too familiar with, or trusting of, another person instead of seeking independent inspection evidence.
• Intimidation Threats
  Arise when a person or body feels coerced openly or secretly, such as being threatened with replacement or being reported to a supervisor.
• Financial Impropriety Threats
  In addition to financial impropriety identified above, Quality International also recognizes that since part of the company’s revenues is received from clients paying for inspections, this is a potential threat to independence and impartiality at an organizational level.
• Illegal Use of Stamp and Signature Threats
  Arise from the illegal use of stamp and signature by any employee. Soft copies of signatures and stamps must be encrypted and protected to avoid misuse.

The personnel of Quality International are free from any commercial, financial, and other pressures which might affect their judgment. No person may influence the results of inspections carried out. Every Quality International employee has the responsibility to comply with the company’s confidentiality, independence, integrity, and impartiality policy. This obligation extends to Quality International’s outsourced inspection and training partners, and is included as a clause in legal agreements with such partners.

Severe fines and outcomes will apply to employees found guilty of misusing signatures and stamps.

Any instance where an employee, outsourced partner, or customer feels there is a threat to independence, integrity, or impartiality, they are encouraged to raise the concern directly with Quality International.