Records Management and Retention
ASF keeps complete records of every standard, policy, accreditation decision and facility assessment file, and gives facilities, auditors and, where legally required, regulators access to their own records on request. Owner: ASF Secretariat.
| Standards and policy version history | Retained permanently (Public Standards Register) |
| Facility assessment files | Retained for the 3-year accreditation cycle plus 3 years |
| Coordinator/Monitor training and exam records | Retained for the certification cycle plus 3 years |
Storage and access control follow Data Protection, IT and Cybersecurity (ASF-POL-18).
Document control
Every standard and policy carries a version number and the Public Standards Register is the single authoritative record of the current version — a superseded document is marked as such on the document itself (see ASF-SURV-STD-v2 for the pattern) and the register never shows two documents as simultaneously Active for the same subject. A new or revised version is reviewed and approved under the Five-Stage Development Process (standards) or ASF-POL-46 (policies) before publication replaces the prior version, so an obsolete version is never the one in active use.