Terms of use: the basis for using this website and its tools.

sterling-grc.com is operated by Sterling International Consulting FZE (licensed as Stearling International Consulting FZE), Creative Tower, Creative City, Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, which presents the services and resources of Sterling International Consulting. Enquiries are handled by Sterling's group companies in the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines and India. Questions about the website can be raised through the Contact page.

These terms concern use of the website only. Consulting, training, software and any other service are governed by the proposal and agreement for that engagement, and nothing here changes such an agreement.

Our guides help you understand options and plan a next step. They describe standards, schemes and laws in general terms; they do not decide whether your organisation meets a requirement, and they are not legal, financial or professional advice. The right approach depends on your activities, locations, scope and evidence.

Standards and regulations change. Check the edition, the date and the official source before relying on a requirement. If something looks wrong, tell us through the Contact page and we will review it.

Certification and attestation decisions are made by independent certification bodies and attestation practitioners. Sterling does not certify, accredit, attest or validate, and nothing on this website is a certificate, an audit opinion or a regulatory approval.

The readiness check, the interactive checklists, Select the Standard™, the scope and timeline estimator, the project plan generator and the certificate check give results from the answers you enter. Results are indicative: a readiness score is not an audit result, a planning timeline is not a commitment, and a certificate check lists what to verify with the issuing body rather than verifying it for you.

Do not rely on a tool result alone for a business, contractual or regulatory decision. A Sterling consultant can go through a result with you in a discovery call.

Ticks in the interactive checklists are kept only in your own browser, on your own device; the website does not send them to Sterling.

The website assistant is a help panel that gives fixed guidance and points you to Sterling's email address; it does not send or store what you type. If an automated assistant is connected later, its answers will be general information, not advice, and will not commit Sterling to any scope, timeline or outcome; the Privacy notice will be updated first.

Sending an enquiry or receiving an acknowledgement starts a conversation. It does not appoint Sterling or confirm an order. Your agreed proposal sets out the scope, responsibilities, deliverables, fees and any commitment to continuing support until the agreed scoped outcome is achieved.

Use the form to explain your requirements. Do not send passwords, payment details or confidential client files through it, and agree an exchange method before sharing sensitive project evidence.

The text, graphics, checklists, tools and design of this website belong to Sterling International Consulting FZE or its licensors. You are welcome to read the content, print pages for your own use and share links. Ask us before you republish substantial content, adapt it or use it in a commercial product, and keep attributions and notices with any material you are allowed to use.

Sterling OS™, Design™, Drive™, Sustain™, Automate™, Revise™ and Select the Standard™ are trademarks used by Sterling International Consulting FZE. Effivity and Sterling Academy are names of the Sterling group. You may not use these names or marks in a way that suggests endorsement without written permission.

Names, logos and standards of third parties remain their owners' property. An explanation of a standard does not include a licence to reproduce the standard itself; standards are available from their publishers.

• Do not disrupt the website, attempt unauthorised access, probe for vulnerabilities without permission or introduce malicious content.
• Do not impersonate another person or submit information you are not entitled to share.
• Do not use automated means that evade access controls, overload the website or interfere with other visitors.
• Do not scrape or copy the content in bulk to build another product or service.

We may restrict access for anyone who breaches these terms. To report a security concern about the website, use the Contact page and give a short description, the page and the time; the Information security policy explains how we handle it.

Links to other websites are provided for convenience. Those sites have their own content, terms and privacy practices, and Sterling is not responsible for them. Sterling Academy at academy.sterling-grc.com has its own terms of use and privacy information, which apply when you use it.

We take care to keep the website accurate and available, but we provide it as it is and do not promise that it will be uninterrupted, error-free or suitable for a particular purpose. To the extent the law allows, Sterling is not liable for any loss arising from reliance on website content, tool results or assistant answers, or from the website being unavailable.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, or removes rights that you have as a consumer under the law of the country where you live.

These terms are governed by the laws of the United Arab Emirates, and the courts of the Emirate of Fujairah have jurisdiction over any dispute about them. If you use the website as a consumer, you keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you live and may bring proceedings there.

Website content and features may change, and we update these terms when they do. The date at the top identifies this version. A change to these terms does not change an existing service agreement. The Privacy notice, the Cookie policy and Sterling's Company policies sit alongside these terms.