India Granted Authorizing Nation Status under Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement

India, on 19 September 2013 was recognised as the Authorizing Nation under the International Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) to test and certify Electronics and IT products with respect to cyber security. With this, India became the 17th country to be given such recognition.

The International Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) at present has 26 member countries which have received Authorizing Nation recognition. Some of these include USA, UK, Germany, South Korea, France, Japan, Canada, Australia, Turkey and Malaysia.

As of now, India had the status of Consuming Nation with respect to certification of Electronics and IT products. The benefit of having the status of Authorizing Nation will help India to test the IT and Electronics products and issue Certificates which will be acceptable internationally. The recognition would also remove the bottleneck which as of now had prevented international companies from submitting their products for testing and certification in India.

The recognition imparted to India will also enable investment in setting up infrastructure and labs in public and private sectors in India for testing Electronics and IT products. Standardisation Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (Deity) has been operating Common Criteria Certification (CC Certification) scheme in India for the last 5-6 years.

Under this mechanism, the STQC undertakes certification of Electronics and IT products after evaluation of the products at its lab in Kolkata. After receiving recognition, the certificates issued by STQC Directorate shall now be acceptable internationally by all CCRA member countries.