GDRFA Dubai becomes first UAE entity to secure AI governance certification
Last updated: December 30, 2025 | 23:20
Dubai's General Directorate of Identity and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA) - Dubai has earned ISO/IEC 42001:2023 certification for its Artificial Intelligence Management System. The certification was issued by the British Standards Institution (BSI) and accredited by the Dutch Accreditation Council (RvA), signaling compliance with internationally recognized AI governance practices.
The move sets a national benchmark for safe, ethical, and auditable AI in public services. It reflects a system-level approach that balances innovation with data protection, compliance, and public trust-key metrics for any government entity deploying AI at scale.
What this means in practice for government leaders
ISO/IEC 42001 is a management-system standard for AI-think policy, controls, monitoring, and continual improvement. For public-sector teams, it translates into predictable operations, clearer accountability, and fewer surprises when AI touches identity, residency, or mission-critical workflows.
- Governance structure: defined roles, decision rights, and accountability for AI lifecycle management.
- Risk management: systematic identification, assessment, and treatment of AI risks (bias, drift, misuse, outages).
- Data safeguards: privacy-by-design, access controls, and data quality checks tied to model performance.
- Transparency: documentation of model purpose, training data sources, and known limitations.
- Monitoring and controls: ongoing metrics, bias tests, human-in-the-loop thresholds, and rollback plans.
- Incident response: clear playbooks for model failures, security events, and stakeholder communication.
- Supplier oversight: requirements for vendors (security, testing, auditability, and conformance evidence).
- Auditability: traceable decisions, versioned models, and retention of logs and evaluation results.
- Skills and culture: training for product owners, risk teams, and service staff who interact with AI outputs.
GDRFA Dubai's leadership highlighted people-centric governance-improving service quality and decision-making while protecting trust and sustainability. The accreditation also reinforces reliability at scale: better performance, fewer errors, and clearer evidence for compliance checks.
What to do next if you run AI in government
- Inventory your AI use cases and classify them by impact and risk.
- Assign accountable owners for each system, with escalation paths and KPIs.
- Adopt baseline AI policies aligned to ISO/IEC 42001; start with risk, data, and transparency controls.
- Pilot an AI management system on one high-value service, then scale after an internal audit.
- Tighten vendor contracts: testing evidence, security assurances, model updates, and audit access.
- Publish a clear public AI policy page to strengthen user confidence and reduce query load.
The RvA-accredited certificate carries international recognition, which helps with cross-border trust, vendor alignment, and future audits. For agencies aiming to modernize services while reducing risk, this is a practical path worth replicating.
Learn more about the standard and accreditation: British Standards Institution (BSI) and Dutch Accreditation Council (RvA).
If your team is building internal capability for AI governance and certifications, explore practical training paths here: Complete AI Training - Popular Certifications.
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