Accreditation is globally promoted as a mechanism of trust, competence, and public assurance. Laboratories, hospitals, certification bodies, and industries rely on accreditation to demonstrate conformity, technical capability, and reliability. However, an uncomfortable and increasingly visible question must be asked:
Can an accreditation body deliberately hide its legal identity on certificates, websites, and official platforms—and if so, why are ILAC and IAF silent?
Why Hide the Legal Identity?
The primary reason is to create a false perception of authority.
When an accreditation body does not clearly disclose whether it is a private limited company, partnership firm, proprietorship, or commercial establishment, customers are led to believe that the body is a government, statutory, or sovereign authority. This illusion of official power generates blind trust and discourages scrutiny.
In reality, many such accreditation bodies are purely commercial entities, driven by revenue rather than public interest, competence, or impartiality.
Who Are Hiding?
The bodies hiding their legal identity are often:
• Proprietorship concerns
• Partnership firms
• Private limited companies
• Commercial establishments registered under business laws
Yet their certificates and branding prominently use terms like Authority, Council, Board, or International, while the actual legal status is intentionally omitted.
This is not accidental—it is a carefully designed strategy.
How the System Is Being Abused
Once authority is assumed, the business model becomes clear:
• Hardly anyone is refused accreditation
• Assessments are reduced to paperwork exercises
• Technical competence becomes optional
• Revenue generation becomes the priority
• Accreditation turns into a “pay-and-receive” product
The outcome is rubber-stamp accreditation, where certificates are issued without genuine evaluation, onsite competence checks, or impartial judgment.
Who Is Being Fooled?
This practice does not just mislead individual clients. It misleads the entire business community:
• Customers trust certificates that carry no real assurance
• Regulators rely on misleading credentials
• Genuine, competent organizations lose credibility
• Markets become flooded with fake quality assurance
In the name of accreditation, businesses are being financially exploited while false confidence is sold as quality.
Ethical Failure and Legal Risk
Hiding legal identity, projecting authority, and issuing certificates that imply public assurance amount to serious ethical violations. In many jurisdictions, this borders on criminal misrepresentation and fraud.
Accreditation was never meant to protect negligence or incompetence—it was meant to protect society.
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ILAC and IAF: The Uncomfortable Silence
The most troubling aspect is the silence of ILAC and IAF.
Despite:
• Open commercialization of accreditation
• Widespread misuse of authority-style branding
• Declining transparency and accountability
There is no visible enforcement, no mandatory disclosure of legal identity, and no public warning to users.
This silence raises fundamental questions:
• Has logo protection replaced public trust?
• Has accreditation become a revenue ecosystem rather than a public-interest function?
Conclusion: A Question That Cannot Be Ignored
Accreditation is losing its moral and technical foundation when bodies hide who they really are, operate like sales companies, and certify everyone who can pay.
Until legal identity disclosure, ownership transparency, and accountability are made mandatory—and until ILAC and IAF stop remaining silent—the credibility of global accreditation itself remains at risk.
If an accreditation body must hide its identity, what exactly is it trying to protect—quality, or business?
About the Author
Dr. Sambhu Chakraborty is a distinguished consultant in quality accreditation for laboratories and hospitals. With a leadership portfolio that includes directorial roles in two laboratory organizations and a consulting firm, as well as chairman of International Organization of Laboratories ( An ILAC stakeholder organisation), Dr. Chakraborty is a respected voice in the field. For further engagement or inquiries, Dr. Chakraborty can be contacted through email at info@sambhuchakraborty.com and contact information are available on his websites,https://www.quality-pathshala.com and https://www.sambhuchakraborty.com , or via WhatsApp at +919830051583