Aviation/Cargo Security Seals

In response to requests received for compliance certificates for Plastic seals all interested parties are asked to note the following:

There are two mandatory processes for a manufacturer to follow to achieve any product compliance to this standard. The first relates to the 5 Physical Property tests of Tensile, Bend, Shear plus the two Impact tests, all of which must be carried out by a suitably qualified test house and on bespoke jigs and fixtures used under controlled conditions.

All types of seal are classified according to the physical values of the test results achieved and on each of the 5 tests above any seal that does not exceed all 5 specified minimum values will automatically be classed as a Security (S) or an Indicative (I) seal according to the values achieved. No plastic seal in the market today meets all the stated minimum values so for this reason there are no benefits for the customer or the manufacturer in having their physical properties tested.

The second process relates to Tamper Testing as detailed in Clause 6 of the standard. Previous announcements from ISO have accepted and confirmed that in the currently published standard this clause 6 is un-workable for the reason that no suitably qualified test facility will undertake and report upon what are subjective tamper testing procedures.

For this reason no seal manufacturer, supplier or distributor can possibly achieve full compliance so all seal users, customers and prospects must remain highly suspicious of any claims for full compliance. In the event that such claims are made to you by "sales personnel" from any manufacturer/supplier they are blatantly not correct.

Within ISO Clause 6 remains under review. Proposed amendments are now at the FDIS stage of that process although formal publication of a revised standard is still some months away.

Please contact your local Acme Seals office for any further clarification on this issue.