Each person must sign up to the body's rules, declare relevant associations and reveal any conflict of interest.
What applies today
The body must require everyone who takes part in certification to sign an agreement or a similar instrument that commits them to three things. They must follow the body's rules, including confidentiality and freedom from commercial and other pressures. They must declare any past or present association, their own or their employer's, with a supplier or designer of products, a service provider or developer, or a process operator or developer to which they are assigned for evaluation or certification. They must reveal any situation they know of that could present them or the body with a conflict of interest. The body must use those declarations when it identifies risks to impartiality from the person's activities or from the organisations that employ them.
Why it matters
The declaration is only useful if it is current and if someone reads it against the work assigned. A signed form in a filing cabinet does not manage a conflict. The clause links the person's own interests and their employer's interests, which matters for contractors and consultants who work for several bodies or for a supplier. The output feeds the impartiality risk register in clause 4.2.
The public FDIS contents lists clause 6.1.3 as Contract with the personnel. The FDIS requirement wording is not held, so the requirement above is the 2012 text that applies until publication.
Where this clause lands in the revision
This is a resource clause, and the public contents adds titled subclauses around it. The 2012 requirement remains the basis of an assessment until publication. A first artefact an assessor commonly asks for here is current declaration for each person, with date and signature. The party this touches first is Everyone involved in the certification process, and the manager who holds their contract.
What the assessor asks for
| Category | Artefact to have ready |
|---|---|
| Signed declaration | Current declaration for each person, with date and signature |
| Association history | Declared past and present associations, including employer links |
| Screening record | Check of declarations against current assignments |
| Action record | Decision taken on a declared risk and the reason |
One common question. compare a person's declaration with the clients they worked on. A declaration that lists no associations at all, for a long-serving assessor, invites a deeper look.
Common failures
- Declarations are collected at induction and never refreshed
- The employer's associations are not asked for
- A declared association was filed but never assessed against assignments
Prepare before publication
Refresh every declaration and compare it with the last twelve months of assignments. Record any match, even if the conclusion is that there is no risk.
Dates that matter
The public record gives stage 50.20 on 4 August 2026 and voting to 27 October 2026. The planning date, 15 February 2027, is an estimate from that stage and not an ISO date, and clause 6.1.3 has no separate date.
Cross-references
4.2 Management of impartiality · 6.1.2 Management of competence for personnel · 7.4 Evaluation · 4.5 Confidentiality
Source
Source for 6.1.3: ISO/IEC 17065:2012, Clause 6.1.3, with the ISO/IEC FDIS 17065 public record. Our statement, not the instrument verbatim; the FDIS wording is not held.
Not legal advice; does not certify. A reading of the requirement and the evidence an assessor commonly samples, not a substitute for the standard or your accreditation body's rules.