For Assayers
The Accreditation Standard, explained
The Accreditation Standard is the published measure against which the Foundation authorises an Accredited Assayer. It is the same for every applicant, so that a Hallmark certified by one Assayer means what a Hallmark certified by another means.
Accreditation may be held by a university, an assurance firm, or a qualified independent. Whoever holds it is measured against four criteria, applied uniformly.
Technical competence
Demonstrable command of the methodology and its gates, and the means to assess an Engagement against the version of the Standard it is certified to — the specification, the implementation, the test and acceptance evidence, and operation over time.
A documented process
A repeatable, written assessment process, so that two Engagements of comparable scope are tested in a comparable way, and a finding can be reconstructed and reviewed after the fact.
Independence
The structural and procedural independence to reach an adverse finding and record it — free of commercial pressure from the Practitioner, the Platform, or the client whose work is under Assay.
Standing
Institutional or professional standing sufficient to be relied upon by a third party reading the Register: a university, an assurance firm, or a qualified independent whose certification carries weight.
Accreditation is granted against the criteria and then held under continuing audit. The Foundation reviews an Assayer's assessments against the standard it certifies to, re-examines its independence, and samples its findings for consistency with the wider regime. Audit is a condition of holding accreditation, not an occasional event.
Where an Assayer no longer meets the criteria — a lapse in process, a failure of independence, a pattern of findings out of step with the regime — its accreditation may be suspended pending remedy, or withdrawn. Suspension stops the Assayer certifying new Engagements; it does not erase the Engagements it has already certified, which remain on the Register. A change in an Assayer's standing is recorded, because concealing it would weaken the very thing the Register exists to protect.
On accreditation, an Assayer is allocated a short cipher — for example OII or ICL. The cipher is unique to the Assayer, is struck as its mark within the Hallmark, and forms the final segment of the canonical identifier carried by every Engagement it certifies, in the form AF-2026-0001-OII. The allocation is recorded with the accreditation, so that the cipher reliably resolves to a single, identifiable Assayer for as long as the Register stands.