Audit Accreditation Workshop for Service Providers

The Compliance and Data Protection (CDP) department, of the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MOTC) Cyber security Sector, hosted on April 25th 2019, a Service Provider Accreditation Workshop. After a series of workshop introducing the National Information Security Compliance Framework (NISCF) certification schemes (National Information Assurance and Government E-Service “Software Security and Quality Assurance”) for Government Entities, this workshop was intended to Service Providers.

The opening of the workshop saw the Compliance and Data Protection Acting Director, Dana Al-Abdulla, introducing the National Information Security Compliance Framework (NISCF) and its different components ranging from the National Information Assurance Policy (NIAP) to the National Information Security Compliance Framework (NISCF) including the Certification and Accreditation services. She also presents the Compliance and Data Protection (CDP) department role in the NISCF. The introduction went on by presenting the different Standards, Certifications schemes and specifically the Accreditation Services available for the Service Providers both currently and in the near future.

After the framework and scheme introduction, the stage was set for going into more details about Service Providers Accreditation by highlighting the benefits of the Accreditation to the market and Service Providers and the Accreditation lifecycle. Specific consideration was given to the Audit Service Accreditation. Indeed, the CDP announced that after a pilot phase, the Audit Service Accreditation is now open to all Service Providers as well as early registration for Advisory Service Accreditation. The CDP also announced that the first two auditors have been accredited. The audience got a detailed insight on the information needed to submit for Audit Service Accreditation through a discussion based on the self-assessment that the Service Providers need to undertake.

The workshop took a different orientation later to present the audience the maintenance activities of the Accreditation Certificate and the different conditions, situation in which the Accreditation could be suspended or withdrawn and how they can complain or appeal the CDP’s decisions during the whole process giving the audience the full spectrum of the Accreditation landscape.

The workshop ended by an extended question and answer session that opened the door to the audience to get answers on their several interrogation.

For more information on the content of the event, please go to the Public Presentations from Events of the library section of our website assurance.ncsa.gov.qa