From July 13 to 15, 2026, the Asia Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (APAC) organized the thematic training on the newly released ISO/IEC 17024:2026, Conformity Assessment — General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons in Colombo, Sri Lanka. China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment (CNAS) send delegates to participate in the training. Delivered by the Convener of ISO/CASCO WG30 (Personnel Certification Working Group) and the lead revising expert of the new standard, the training brought together 39 representatives from accreditation bodies across the Asia-Pacific region.

ISO/IEC 17024 constitutes the core standard for the accreditation of personnel certification bodies worldwide. The new edition of ISO/IEC 17024 , which was officially published in March 2026, introduces requirements for the application of artificial intelligence (AI), addresses remote examination modalities, further clarifies the boundaries of impartiality-related threats and risks, improves the control of conflicts of interest in training and certification activities, and refines requirements for certification schemes. It also elaborates provisions for online examination administration, control of electronic examination items, management of personnel certification records, as well as information confidentiality and security, to fully cater to the needs of digital-oriented certification activities.

The training covered clauses of the new standard, supporting documents, transition-period conversion policies and key accreditation assessment points. Practical-case-based group discussions were held to deepen participants' understanding of standard implementation. At present, two personnel certification bodies in China have obtained CNAS accreditation. Going forward, CNAS will systematically identify gaps between the new and old standard editions, revise and improve accreditation normative documents, and carry out accreditation-related conversion work in a well-ordered manner, so as to provide solid technical support for China's timely application to join the international mutual recognition system for personnel certification and facilitate cross-border recognition of Chinese personnel evaluation results.