ISO/IEC 17025 — General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories
International Organization for Standardization / International Electrotechnical Commission · Edition 3, published 2017-11; reviewed and confirmed 2023 · 2017
Identifier: ISO/IEC 17025:2017
Access and status
Cost
Paywalled
Behind a subscription or per-item charge. Check whether your firm, university or public library already has access before paying at the door.
Status
Current
Current as at the verification date below. Standards and tools both move — confirm at source before you rely on it.
What it is
The 30-page accreditation standard against which forensic laboratories, including digital forensics units, are assessed for technical competence, impartiality and consistent operation. The third edition (2017) replaced the 2005 edition and was confirmed on systematic review in 2023.
Who it is for, and when
Read it if your unit is seeking or holding accreditation, or if you are cross-examining on whether a laboratory's declared scope actually covered the examination it performed. In practice the standard is applied through an accreditation body: ANAB, for example, runs an ISO/IEC 17025 Forensic Testing Laboratory programme alongside an ISO/IEC 17020 forensic inspection programme (https://anab.ansi.org/forensic-accreditation/). It is paywalled: iso.org listed it at CHF 179 in September 2026, and readers should check iso.org for a newer revision before relying on this edition.
What it does not cover
It is discipline-neutral — there is not a word in it about digital evidence, imaging, hashing or mobile extraction. Accreditation to it says the management system and the declared methods were assessed competent; it makes no claim about any individual case, and scope statements are often narrower than lawyers assume.
Go to the source
Open at iso.org (opens in a new tab)https://www.iso.org/standard/66912.html
Details
- Type
- Standard or guidance
- Written for
- Working examinerLawyers and courtsWorking examiner, Lawyers and courts
- Publisher
- International Organization for Standardization / International Electrotechnical Commission
- Version verified
- Edition 3, published 2017-11; reviewed and confirmed 2023
- Year
- 2017
- Identifier
- ISO/IEC 17025:2017
- Topics
- lab-accreditation, quality-assurance, validation, legal-admissibility
- Checked at source
- Standards are revised. Confirm the current revision with the publisher before citing this.
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