News: ISO Releases New Standard for Electronic Approvals

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published a new standard today aimed at harmonizing security, auditability, and interoperability for electronic approvals. The standard, ISO/IEC 99999 (provisional number for this article), sets minimum requirements for authentication, tamper-evidence, time-stamping, and audit logs for approval systems used across sectors.

What the new standard covers

Key components include:

• Authentication: requirements for multi-factor authentication and identity proofing.
• Non-repudiation: digital signatures and cryptographic assurances for sign-off events.
• Tamper-evident logs: immutable audit trails with verifiable timestamps.
• Interoperability: common data formats for exchanging approval records among systems.
• Retention: recommended retention periods and archival best practices.

Why it matters

The standard helps align enterprise security teams, compliance officers, and vendors. Many organizations struggle with inconsistent audit evidence across different toolchains — one product stores approvals as emails, another as proprietary logs. ISO/IEC 99999 seeks to create a baseline so that audit evidence can be relied upon across jurisdictions.

Vendor and industry reaction

Major approval platform vendors have welcomed the guidance and indicated roadmaps to align their systems with the new requirements. Security and compliance teams at banks and healthcare providers noted that the standard could simplify vendor assessments and reduce bespoke audit requests.

"A standardized approach to approval evidence will accelerate vendor onboarding and simplify regulatory interactions," said a compliance director at a leading regional bank.

Implications for buyers

Buyers should include compliance with ISO/IEC 99999 in procurement checklists where relevant. Expect vendors to add features such as cryptographic signing, improved timestamping, and exportable, standardized audit bundles over the next 12-18 months.

Actionable steps for organizations

1. Review current approval platforms for alignment with the standard's authentication and logging clauses.
2. Engage vendors about planned compliance roadmaps and timelines.
3. Consider contract clauses that require exportable audit evidence in standardized formats.
4. Plan for internal process updates to capture identity proofing and retention policies.

What’s next

ISO will accept industry feedback over the next six months as they finalize normative clauses. We expect to see implementation guides and test suites from major vendors and independent test labs to validate compliance claims.

This new standard represents an important step in making digital approvals auditable, resilient, and consistent across sectors. For organizations that rely on high-integrity approvals — especially regulated industries — adopting the standard early will likely provide competitive and compliance advantages.