De Beers Group Industry Services announced today that all four of their diamond verification instruments (DVI) submitted for testing as part of Project ASSURE have received outstanding results.

Project Assure is a joint collaboration between the Diamond Producers Association (DPA) and Signet Jewelers, with input provided by other participants in the diamond industry and gemological laboratories, including De Beers Group.

 The project known as the ASSURE programme has today published the results from the independent performance tests of the DVI in the ASSURE Directory on diamondproducers.com/ASSURE. Through the ASSURE Directory trade participants can access objective and third party verified information on the relative performance of Diamond Verification Instruments – and – guidance on how to ensure that their business is protected from undisclosed laboratory grown diamonds.

 De Beers Group Industry Services submitted four instruments for testing: DiamondSure™, AMS2™, SYNTHdetect™ and DiamondView™, receiving excellent results overall, and with the SYNTHdetect, AMS2 and DiamondView being the only tested instruments to achieve a diamond accuracy rating above 99%. Three of the verification instruments gave a 0% false positive rate meaning no synthetic diamonds were mis-identified as natural diamonds, with the AMS2 recoding near perfect results. All of the instruments either identified or referred 100% of synthetic diamonds for further testing. The DiamondView achieved 100% accuracy and a zero referral rate and the AMS2 and SYNTHdetect instruments referred less than 0.75% of natural diamonds for further testing.

 Speaking about the results, Jonathan Kendall, President, De Beers Group Industry Services, said: “We are thrilled to have received the results of the ASSURE programmes independent testing and to have learnt that our diamond verification instruments performed so well. It is of key importance to the diamond industry that we are able to provide clear guidance about the capabilities of diamond detection instruments so that our customers can have confidence in the machinery, and their ability to detect lab grown diamonds.”

 Jean-Marc Lieberherr, CEO of the Diamond Producers Association, said “Trade participants have a shared responsibility to disclose the nature of the product they are selling to protect the end consumer. Through the ASSURE Program we will support the diamond trade, from independent jewellery retailers to large diamond manufacturers, to make informed decisions on how to ensure that undisclosed laboratory grown diamonds do not enter their natural diamond supply chain. The ASSURE test results should be considered along guidelines formulated by the Responsible Jewellery Council.”

 Andrew Bone, Executive Director at the Responsible Jewellery Council, said “We welcome this initiative to support the spread of effective diamond verification practices across the pipeline. We will continue to support the DPA and the ASSURE Program in their efforts to enhance consumer confidence in the jewellery industry.”

 The ASSURE Program partnered with the 11 manufacturers representing the 18 most widely available Diamond Verification instruments in the market. The instruments submitted to Assure have been tested in accordance with the methods and protocols in the Diamond Verification Instruments Standard. The standard was developed in collaboration with the independent third-party test agency UL and a Technical Committee consisting of leading scientists and academics from major gemmological organisations, including GIA, GII, IIDGR (Institute of Diamond Grading & Research now known as De Beers Group Industry Services), NGTC, SSEF, TISNCM and WTOCD. The Diamond

Verification Instruments have been tested with a deliberately challenging sample (including natural diamonds, laboratory grown diamonds and if applicable, diamond simulants), designed to provide an indication of the relative performance of the instruments. The first round of testing took place at UL’s laboratories in Canton, Massachusetts, USA, and the results will continuously be made available in the ASSURE Directory in the coming weeks.