The North American Security Products Organization (NASPO), Washington, D.C., an ANSI-accredited standards development organization, announced that its new security assurance standards for the document and product security industries have been approved by the ANSI Board of Standards Review as an American National Standard.

NASPO’s new standard (ANSI/NASPO-SAv3.0P-2005) identifies broad areas of security risks and specifies what must be done to reduce them to an acceptable level by high (Class I), medium (Class II), and basic (Class III) security operations. The standard addresses the protection of security technologies and products by providing a framework to certify that suppliers and brand owners form secure operations and supply chains. It serves as a comprehensive guide for the specification of security risk management requirements that are essential to establishing and maintaining the effectiveness of security technologies and products used as countermeasures against document, identity and product fraud.

“The advent of this new national standard is a defining moment that marks the genesis of security assurance in North America in same way that ISO 9000 became the standard for quality assurance in 1987,” said NASPO chairman Michael O’Neil. “The difference, sadly, is that quality assurance deals with the prevention of mistakes by honest citizens while security assurance deals with the prevention and mitigation of dishonest acts that are associated with personal identity fraud, economic fraud and brand product fraud. Protecting our brands, documents and identities from fraud is one of the most difficult challenges facing homeland security and brand owners in today’s world. By some estimates over 15 percent of branded products sold worldwide are counterfeit.”

NASCO’s is the only security standard of its type in North America and is available to all organizations, end users and brand owners for use in requisition and procurement specifications. By selecting the specific security classification level and/or requirements necessary to deliver security assurance at that level, brand owners can prequalify potential bidders and contractors, thereby saving time and eliminating the need for unnecessary audits.