Your IAPP certification has been held up to the world's gold standard for certification and passed muster. Today, the IAPP announced that several of its certifications have been granted accreditation from the American National Standards Institute under the International Organization for Standardization's (ISO) standard 17024 for personnel certification programs, which "provides a global benchmark for personnel certification programs to ensure that they operate in a consistent, comparable and reliable manner worldwide, thereby allowing individuals to have skills that translate across national lines."

With ANSI accreditation to the ISO standard, "IAPP's certification program has reached a level of maturity that reflects that of the organization and of the privacy profession more generally,” said Ben Hayes, CIPP/C, CIPP/E, CIPP/G, CIPP/US, CIPM, CIPT, a member of the IAPP Certification Advisory Board. “This is an important external validation of the privacy profession and benefits IAPP members everywhere.”

Specifically, ANSI officially recognized the Certified Information Privacy Manager (CIPM) , Certified Information Privacy Professional/Europe (CIPP/E), Certified Information Privacy Professional/United States (CIPP/US) and Certified Information Privacy Technologist (CIPT) credentials, following a rigorous review process.

“The accreditation of our credentials by ANSI is an important step in our mission to continually add value to the knowledge and skills we offer these professionals,” said IAPP President and CEO J. Trevor Hughes, CIPP. “It provides them with a new level of recognition and professionalism that helps to further the privacy profession as a whole.”

Achieving ISO accreditation acknowledges the quality and integrity of the IAPP’s certification programs by:

• Demonstrating that IAPP credentials meet a global, industry-recognized benchmark;
• Ensuring IAPP credentials are consistent, comparable and reliable worldwide, giving professionals the opportunity to have skills that translate across national lines;
• Protecting the integrity and ensuring the validity of the IAPP certification program, and
• Promoting to employers, colleagues, clients and vendors that IAPP-certified professionals have the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to perform their work.

The CIPP, which was created in 2004, was the first professional certification ever offered for information privacy professionals and has become the preeminent credential in the field. The CIPM followed in 2013, and is the first and only certification designed for leaders in privacy program management, while the CIPT, which launched in 2014, is designed for IT, security and engineering professionals who are interested in learning how to build their organizations’ privacy structures from the ground up.

In seeking ANSI accreditation, the IAPP focused on the four designations with the largest number of test-takers.

“CIPP/G and CIPP/C are our two smallest designations, and we didn’t have the test data to support the psychometrics for them as ANSI requires a robust set of test results to demonstrate the validity of an exam,” Hughes explained.

And the IAPP’s 2015 Privacy Professionals Salary Survey found that the strongest indicator for increased salary and achievement in the field of privacy is professional certification.

“With corporations and businesses around the world calling for professionals to factor data privacy into their products and services, the need for highly trained privacy pros has never been stronger,” Hughes said.

Want to find out more about the IAPP’s certification programs or accreditation? Check out our website here.