ISO 17712 and How it Affects Suppliers
What is ISO 17712?
ISO 17712 is an ISO International Standard published in September 2010; it supplants the earlier Publicly Available Specification (ISO PAS) 17712. The Standard establishes “uniform procedures for the classification, acceptance, and withdrawal of acceptance of mechanical freight container seals”.
ISO 17712 defines the various types of security seals available the general performance requirements for each product type and detailed test specifications.
The standard has three main features, each of which requires documentation of compliance by properly accredited test laboratories or business process auditors; the labs and auditors must have ISO 17712 as part of the scope of competence. (You can read ISMA's recommendations to seal buyers at How can buyers be sure?
1. Testing of physical strength (as barriers to entry)
2. Auditing of manufacturer's security-related business practices
3. Testing of a seal's ability to indicate evidence of tampering (which becomes mandatory for all compliant seals 1st March 2012.
Physical strength. ISO 17712 defines three classes of seal strength or barrier capacity: "I" Indicative, "S" Security and "H" High Security; cargo security programs such as C-TPAT call for "H" class seals. Classification requires independent testing by a laboratory accredited according to ISO/IEC 17025, General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. ISO 17712 includes specific tests for tensile strength, shear resistence, bend resistence or endurance and resistance to physical impacts.
Manufacturer's security-related business practises. Immature or careless security-related practises can undercut the effectiveness of the highest quality security seals. ISO 17712's Annex A (normative) defines more than two dozen required pratices, such as maintenance of quality assurance programs (ISO 9001), facility risk assessment, seven year data retention programs for seals, and access control to production and storage areas.
To demonstrate conformance with Annex A, manufactuers must be audited by an independent process certifier that is specifically accredited to audit conformance with ISO 17712.
As a supplier you may not sell any seal as "ISO 17712 compliant" unless your firm has the proper independent certification that your firm's practices conform to Annex A. ISO 17712 is explicit: only firms in conformance with Annex A may place an "H", "S" or "I" class indicator on a seal.
Testing of a seal's ability to indicate evidence of tampering. The primary reason to use a security seal is to provide evidence of attempts to tamper with the seal. In ISO 17712's tamper test procedures, laboratory tamper attempts must leave detectable evidence of tampering in each of the three tests; three successes earn a "Pass" grade but an "undetectable" result on any test generates a "Fail" grade for the seal. All classes of seals - "I", "S" and "H" - must earn "Pass grades to qualify as 17712 compliant.
Experienced suppliers know that valid tamper evident testing is difficult. It was added to the Standard after requests by and discussions with officials of the European Commission. Tamper evident testing in ISO 17712 is a compromise to accomodate two valid but conflicting goals: providing specific common test procedures and not providing a public "cookbook" of ways to defeat security seals. The compromise presents a challenge to conscientious testing laboratories and suppliers.
You may purchase copies of ISO 17712: 2010 from ISO itself or from many national standards bodies such as AFNOR (France), ANSI (US) or BSI (UK).