Compliance Testing in Software Testing: How and Why to Comply with Industry Standards
There was a time when the software industry felt like the Wild West: with little to no rules or regulations in place, the best we could hope for was the good intentions and consciousness of developers who handled increasing amounts of sensitive data.
Since then, the situation has changed dramatically. Starting from the 1980s, software development has become more and more regulated. Now various software products, from healthcare and eCommerce to fintech and banking, need to comply with a set of compliance guidelines relevant to their domain and geographical location. This is why compliance testing is now an integral part of developing and testing software. By pointing out inconsistencies, flaws, and instances of unmet requirements, compliance testing helps avoid legal trouble, reputational losses, and financial damage that stem from non-compliance. Find out all about how and why to do compliance testing from today’s guide.
What Is Compliance Testing?
Compliance testing is a non-functional testing process that ensures a product or process adheres to the applicable regulatory requirements, as well as the company’s software quality standards, policies, and philosophy. Conducted early in the development cycle, it evaluates the control environment and verifies whether the software complies with pre-determined requirements. By systematically assessing the product’s documentation, online support, licensing, and functionality, compliance testing pushes boundaries and enhances quality. A product only passes if it meets all standards and performs satisfactorily, aligning with the organization’s procedures and policies.
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Compliance Testing vs. Conformance Testing
Compliance testing is crucial for ensuring adherence to industry regulations and standards. However, it’s not the only activity of this kind. There is also conformance testing, which has basically the same definition as compliance testing. But are they really two synonyms for one concept?
In reality, while conformance testing is similar to compliance testing, they are two very different things. Compliance testing is about meeting external obligations for legality and market readiness, while conformance testing ensures internal or industry-specific alignment with functional or design requirements. Let’s take a closer look at the differences between compliance and conformance testing to better understand the distinction between them.
Who Needs Compliance Testing?
Compliance testing is the type of testing that is used less often than some of the most common types like functional testing, system and integration testing, or security testing. At the same time, more businesses need to follow compliance requirements than many of them realize. Here are the types of organizations and industries that cannot go without compliance software testing.
1. Organizations Handling Sensitive Data
Businesses that process sensitive information, such as banks, healthcare providers, or eCommerce platforms, need compliance testing to adhere to regulations like GDPR, HIPAA, or PCI DSS. This ensures secure handling of data and protects against legal and financial repercussions.
2. Companies in Regulated Industries
Industries like pharmaceuticals, aviation, and energy require compliance testing to meet strict standards. For example, pharmaceutical companies follow FDA regulations, while aviation software must meet FAA requirements to ensure safety and regulatory approval.
3. Software and Technology Providers
SaaS providers, IoT device manufacturers, and other tech companies must perform compliance testing to align with standards like ISO/IEC 27001 for information security or SOC 2 for data management practices, ensuring marketability and trustworthiness.
4. Public Sector Organizations
Government agencies and public utilities rely on compliance testing to meet legal obligations such as Section 508 for digital accessibility or ISO 14001 for environmental standards. These tests ensure services are accessible and sustainable.
5. Enterprises Operating Globally
Multinational corporations must comply with various regional laws and standards. Compliance testing helps them meet requirements like GDPR in Europe, CCPA in California, or PIPL in China, maintaining legal operations across borders.
6. Fintech and Payment Processors
Companies in the financial and banking sector, including payment gateways and digital wallets, use compliance testing to adhere to standards like PCI DSS for payment security and AML laws to prevent financial crimes, ensuring customer trust and regulatory approval.
7. Startups Seeking Certification
Startups aiming to build market credibility often use compliance testing to obtain certifications such as ISO 9001 for quality management. This helps demonstrate their commitment to industry standards and gain customer trust.
10 Use Cases for Software Compliance Testing
Making sure that software is compliant with industry regulations is an integral part of software development, especially for industries where rules and guidelines need to be followed with maximum precision. But when exactly should you do compliance checks and what do you get from it? Here are 10 use cases that prove that compliance testing is essential in so many different cases.
- Ensuring data privacy. Compliance testing confirms that software systems comply with GDPR, HIPAA, or similar regulations, ensuring secure data handling, encrypted transmission, and protection of user rights such as access and deletion.
- Payment security. Testing ensures payment systems meet PCI DSS standards, validating encrypted transactions, secure data storage, and robust fraud prevention mechanisms to safeguard financial information and build customer confidence.
- Accessibility standards. Compliance verification ensures software adheres to WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) by implementing features such as keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and proper color contrast, ensuring usability for individuals with disabilities.
- Regulatory adherence in healthcare. Compliance checks ensure healthcare solutions like EMR systems or telemedicine apps comply with HIPAA or FDA guidelines, protecting patient data and maintaining system reliability in critical medical applications.
- Environmental standards compliance. Timely compliance testing ensures IoT devices and software adhere to ISO 14001 by meeting energy efficiency requirements, sustainable practices, and proper disposal protocols, contributing to environmentally responsible operations.
- Legal compliance in financial software. Testing ensures banking and fintech systems comply with AML and KYC regulations, enabling accurate customer verification, secure data handling, and monitoring of suspicious activities.
- Meeting industry standards for safety. Testing for compliance ensures adherence to ISO 26262 for automotive or DO-178C for aviation software, maintaining functional safety and meeting rigorous industry requirements.
- Certification for cloud And SaaS platforms. In-depth reviews confirm that cloud services and SaaS applications meet SOC 2 or ISO/IEC 27001 standards, ensuring secure, reliable, and efficient operation for customers.
- Market-specific requirements. Compliance validation ensures software adheres to region-specific regulations, such as PIPL for China or local tax laws, enabling smooth market entry and compliance with local expectations.
- Protecting intellectual property. Compliance checks confirm adherence to software licensing agreements and prevent unauthorized use of third-party tools or libraries, reducing legal risks and ensuring ethical practices.
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Why Perform Compliance Testing: The Biggest Benefits
Regulatory compliance testing is a crucial element of releasing software for industries that are heavily monitored by regulatory bodies. However, meeting the requirements of regulatory organizations is not the only reason to invest in a compliance program. Here are the key reasons to conduct compliance testing.
1. Legal Risk Reduction
Compliance testing helps organizations avoid fines, lawsuits, and penalties by ensuring that software adheres to relevant laws and regulations.
2. Enhanced Trust and Credibility
Adhering to compliance standards demonstrates commitment to security and quality, building trust among customers, partners, and stakeholders.
3. Market Readiness
Compliance testing ensures the software meets the necessary certifications and regulatory requirements, allowing it to launch successfully in targeted markets or industries.
4. Competitive Advantage
Products that comply with regulations and standards are more appealing to security-conscious customers, providing a key differentiator in competitive markets.
5. Operational Efficiency
Identifying compliance gaps early in development reduces rework, saves resources, and ensures smoother project execution.
Different Types of Compliance Testing
Software compliance testing is not a monolith — rather, it’s a set of activities used to check and audit a product’s compliance with relevant rules and regulations. Naturally, like most testing activities, compliance software testing can also be broken down into several common testing types. It goes without saying that the exact combination of types of compliance testing always depends on the project specifics and goals. Still, here are key types of testing guaranteeing that software products and services are fully compliant with industry standards and regulations.
1. Regulatory Testing
As one of the most common compliance testing activities, regulatory compliance tests are designed to make sure that software adheres to external laws and regulations imposed by governing bodies, such as GDPR for data privacy, HIPAA for healthcare, or PCI DSS for payment security.
2. Security Testing
Security testing focuses on assessing the system’s security measures, ensuring they meet required standards like ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2, or NIST cybersecurity guidelines to protect against threats and data breaches.
3. Accessibility Testing
Accessibility tests ensure the software is accessible to individuals with disabilities by adhering to standards like WCAG or Section 508.
4. Internal Policy Testing
This type of testing is meant to make sure the software aligns with the organization’s internal policies, such as coding standards, proprietary protocols, or guidelines for ethical data handling.
5. Environmental Testing
This testing activity is designed to ensure that the software and hardware meet environmental standards like ISO 14001, ensuring energy efficiency, sustainable design, and proper disposal practices.
6. Process Testing
Process testing evaluates adherence to established processes and methodologies, such as Agile, DevOps, or ISO 9001 quality management systems, to maintain consistency and efficiency.
7. Market Compliance Testing
This type is designed to confirm alignment with regional or market-specific laws, such as PIPL in China, CCPA in California, or local taxation requirements for eCommerce platforms.
8. Interoperability Testing
This type of testing checks whether the software complies with standards ensuring compatibility
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Popular Industry Standards for Compliance Testing
Compliance testing is performed all around the world and across a comprehensive range of industries and product types. However, the exact set of mandatory compliance testing activities will depend on the relevant regulations, which, in turn, rely on the geography and domain. Here are the most common compliance regulations applicable to software products.
United States
- HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) — Governs healthcare data privacy and security.
- SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act) — Ensures financial transparency and data integrity.
- PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) — Secures payment card transactions.
- CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) — Protects personal data and privacy for California residents.
- NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) Frameworks — Provides cybersecurity guidelines.
United Kingdom
- UK GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) — Mirrors the EU GDPR, governing data privacy and security.
- DPA 2018 (Data Protection Act 2018) — Implements UK GDPR and regulates personal data processing.
- PSR (Payment Services Regulations) — Oversees electronic payments and security.
- Accessibility Regulations — Requires public sector websites and apps to meet WCAG 2.1 standards.
Canada
- PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act) — Regulates how organizations collect, use, and disclose personal information.
- CASL (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation) — Prohibits sending unsolicited messages and enforces transparency.
- PHIPA (Personal Health Information Protection Act) — Governs healthcare data privacy in certain provinces.
Australia
- APPs (Australian Privacy Principles) — Govern personal data collection, storage, and use under the Privacy Act 1988.
- CPS 234 (APRA Prudential Standard) — Mandates cybersecurity measures for financial institutions.
- NDB (Notifiable Data Breaches) Scheme — Requires notification of data breaches affecting individuals.
European Union
- GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) — Comprehensive data protection law regulating the processing and transfer of personal data.
- PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) — Strengthens payment security and promotes innovation in financial services.
- eIDAS (Electronic Identification, Authentication, and Trust Services Regulation) — Facilitates secure electronic transactions across EU member states.
- NIS Directive (Network and Information Systems Directive) — Improves cybersecurity for essential services and digital infrastructure.
Global Standards
- ISO/IEC 27001 — International standard for information security management.
- ISO 9001 — Ensures quality management in software development processes.
- SOC 2 (System and Organization Controls 2) — Evaluates security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy in systems.
The Testing Process for Ensuring Software Compliance
Whether compliance testing is carried out by an internal auditor, a testing team, or a compliance department, it follows a specific sequence of steps. Here is how the process of compliance testing works within the software testing life cycle.
Step #1: Understanding Regulatory and Policy Requirements
Teams need to start by identifying all applicable regulations, industry standards, and company policies. This foundational step ensures a clear understanding of compliance obligations and sets the stage for the testing process.
Step #2: Constructing the Requirements Library
The next step is creating a centralized repository of the company’s rules, regulatory obligations, and mandatory policies. This library serves as the single source of truth for identifying compliance risks and guiding testing efforts.
Step #3: Evaluating Software Compliance Risk
This step is about creating a risk assessment matrix to categorize potential risks of regulatory violations into primary and secondary levels. The team needs to define specific evaluation parameters, including measurable factors and data sources, to ensure precision.
Step #4: Producing the Testing Methodology
Next comes developing a detailed compliance testing methodology that outlines entry criteria, testing techniques, and protocols for handling compliance issues. It’s important to communicate this methodology to relevant stakeholders to avoid duplication and ensure alignment.
Step #5: Planning the Testing Scope
This is where you define the scope of testing by identifying critical areas of the software that need evaluation. Focus on high-risk components and ensure comprehensive coverage of compliance requirements.
Step #6: Selecting Testing Tools and Resources
Compliance testing can be performed using a variety of tools and frameworks, both custom and ready-made. Together with the team, you’ll need to identify and acquire appropriate testing tools, whether manual or automated, to facilitate efficient and accurate compliance testing. You will also need to assign skilled personnel to execute compliance testing.
Step #7: Launching Compliance Testing
This is a crucial step in all compliance testing processes. Here, you will collect necessary data and execute the tests according to the predefined methodology, and then analyze the software for adherence with standards in compliance testing and identify areas that violate regulations or company policies.
Step #8: Analyzing and Documenting Results
Analyzing the results of compliance testing is a critical step that allows organizations to quickly take action where necessary. You will need to examine the testing outcomes to pinpoint compliance gaps or failures. Documenting test results in a transparent report, highlighting non-compliant areas and recommended corrective actions for stakeholders and auditors, helps you ensure compliance in the long run, even after changes in the team.
Step #9: Implementing Corrections
Together with compliance experts, you will need to address all identified compliance issues by updating the software, refining processes, or implementing new controls. Also, ensure corrections align with regulatory and company standards.
Step #10: Revalidating Compliance
In an ideal scenario, compliance testing is an ongoing process that takes place at multiple stages of the software development cycle. To ensure this, conduct follow-up tests on corrected areas and confirm that all issues have been resolved and the software satisfies all relevant requirements.
Step #11: Maintaining Continuous Monitoring
Establishing ongoing monitoring processes allows organizations to make sure that the software remains compliant as regulations evolve and to mitigate compliance risks before they become a bigger issue. Update the requirements library and testing methodology as needed to adapt to changes.
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Compliance Testing Examples
When a new software product or service is about to hit the market, it may be subject to compliance testing. Let’s say a new version of Discord is in the final development stages. Before it gets verified as a product ready for release, its various features need strict compliance testing procedures, such as user access rights, software licenses, program documentation, program change control procedures, log reviews, protocol testing, audio and video tests, completeness assertions, etc.
The different parts of the test are assigned with certain failure conditions. For example: information revealed by mouseover is not available to keyboard-only users (i.e., there is no equivalent screen text or visual context). The results are divided into three categories, only one of which is applicable:
- “Does not apply [DNA]” — if mouseovers are not used;
- “Not Compliant [NC]” — if the information is in the title but is not represented through text or visual context;
- “Compliant [C]” — if the title provides information and equivalent information is found through text or visual context. The latter results are then submitted to the company’s reporting tool.
This is a general example of how in-depth compliance testing assists in creating products that fully conform to the relevant guidelines. Here are some more examples of compliance software testing in action.
1. Testing Data Privacy
A software company develops an application handling sensitive customer data. In this case, compliance testing ensures the app adheres to regulations like GDPR, CCPA, or HIPAA. Test scenarios may include verifying data encryption during transmission, ensuring users can exercise their right to access or delete data, and testing audit logs to confirm compliance with regulatory retention policies.
2. Financial System Compliance Testing
A newly developed banking application must comply with PCI DSS standards for payment card data security. Compliance testing for this product will involve checking data encryption, monitoring systems for vulnerabilities, validating secure authentication protocols, and ensuring data storage adheres to requirements, such as masking credit card numbers.
3. Comprehensive Accessibility Compliance Testing
A government website needs to comply with WCAG 2.1 accessibility standards. Testing for this compliance standard includes verifying keyboard navigation for users with motor impairments, ensuring screen readers interpret content accurately, checking text color contrast ratios, and confirming the presence of descriptive alt text for images.
4. Environmental Compliance Testing
An IoT solution for energy monitoring must meet environmental standards like ISO 14001, among other compliance regulations. To ensure this, testing will involve assessing hardware for energy efficiency, confirming data collection aligns with environmental reporting standards, and verifying device disposal protocols meet recycling regulations.
5. Healthcare Software Compliance Testing
A telemedicine platform must comply with FDA or ISO 13485 standards for medical devices. This is achieved via tests that validate secure storage and sharing of patient records, ensure user authentication for accessing sensitive data, and confirm software updates maintain compliance without introducing risks.
Key Methodologies for Effective Compliance Testing
Every company has its methodology or adjusts to the general testing strategies. There are several methodologies in software testing, any of which can be used to conduct a compliance test. Here are the most common ones:
- Agile methodology — this is based on quick adaptation principles, where small working teams constantly adapt to new testing requirements. Agile is one of the most popular choices for testing software for compliance because it allows issues to be detected earlier and corrected with fewer resources and money spent.
- Waterfall methodology — a thorough and slow methodology approach. Here, full-scale documentation and planning always take place before each step. You cannot take the next step unless the previous one is complete. This is a simple method that is widely used to conduct a compliance test but, unfortunately, is resistant to quick corrections.
- Verification-Validation methodology (V-Model) — a noteworthy approach that is based on the notion that the testing process should proceed alongside the development itself. Upon concluding a particular development step, the team instantly starts the testing process.
Challenges of Compliance Software Testing
Performing deliverable compliance testing has the clear goal of making software products meet not just user expectations but also legal and industry-specific requirements. Naturally, a task as crucial as this one can often cause the team to encounter certain challenges. These are the most common challenges of performing software compliance testing.
1. Complex and Evolving Regulations
Regulatory requirements vary across industries and regions, often changing over time. Keeping up with these updates and ensuring alignment with current standards is a constant challenge.
2. High Cost of Non-Compliance
The consequences of non-compliance, including fines, legal action, and reputational damage, can be severe. Therefore, testing must be thorough, increasing both cost and effort.
3. Ambiguity in Regulatory Requirements
Regulations are sometimes written in vague or non-technical language, making it difficult to interpret and translate them into actionable testing criteria.
4. Limited Resources and Expertise
Compliance testing requires specialized knowledge of regulations, as well as tools and frameworks. Many organizations lack skilled personnel or sufficient resources to perform comprehensive testing.
5. Integration with Legacy Systems
It’s not uncommon for companies in a variety of industries, from healthcare to banking, to rely on legacy systems for their daily operations — as long as software fulfills its original purpose, it can be considered usable. However, verifying compliance for software that interacts with outdated or legacy systems can be difficult due to compatibility issues and missing documentation.
6. Time Constraints
Organizations are often racing against the clock to release products faster than their competitors and grab a slice of the lucrative software pie. Tight deadlines to meet market or regulatory timelines can pressure teams to speed up the testing schedule, increasing the risk of errors or oversight.
7. Dependency on Third-Party Vendors
Many companies rely on third-party vendors for tools, APIs, or integrations. Ensuring these components meet compliance requirements adds another layer of complexity.
8. Data Security and Privacy Concerns
Compliance testing often involves handling sensitive data, meaning teams need to make sure that not only the software is secure, but also the data is being thoroughly protected. Securing this information during testing without violating privacy regulations is a critical challenge.
9. Continuous Monitoring Requirements
Compliance is not a one-time activity; it needs to take place at multiple points throughout the development process. Implementing practices for ongoing monitoring and periodic revalidation adds operational complexity and resource requirements.
10. Lack of Automation Tools
Although automated testing can streamline compliance checks and make them more precise, automating compliance testing may be challenging because suitable tools are often limited or require extensive customization to address specific regulatory requirements.
11. Testing on Mobile Devices
With billions of smartphones and tablets being used daily around the world, testing for mobile systems is an integral part of compliance checks. At the same time, testing compliance on mobile platforms inevitably creates some challenges: most importantly, challenges that deal with device fragmentation, strict app store rules that also differ by region, network variability, and frequent OS updates.
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Our Experience with Compliance Management & Testing
TestFort’s experience in software testing spans over two decades and products from every industry imaginable. We have also provided compliance testing services to multiple product owners who wanted to ensure their software was not only technically flawless but also free of any compliance issues. Here is how the work on two of the most prominent projects went.
1. Mobile Fintech Application
Our QA team was involved in testing a brand new mobile application designed to engage investors in the Gulf Region, and part of the job was to test compliance with all necessary requirements. The fintech domain is one of the most heavily regulated ones right now, and the region where the app was planned to be released also creates compliance challenges of its own.
Compliance testing for the mobile app ensured adherence to the UAE’s Personal Data Protection Law, which mandates transparency, fair processing, and data localization. The testing process started with us creating an in-depth compliance testing strategy, as well as preparing a regulatory checklist, risk assessment, and tailored methodology. Tools like axe DevTools® Mobile Accessibility were used to ensure compliance with accessibility standards, protecting user data, and meeting legal requirements while enhancing user trust.
Comprehensive QA for a Mobile Fintech App: An In-Depth Case Study
2. Healthcare Document Management Platform
For this project, our team partnered with the client’s development and testing departments to perform comprehensive testing of a new document management platform designed for use in the healthcare domain. Before the client could release the product into the American market, they first needed to make sure that everything was shipshape, and that included compliance with healthcare regulations — most importantly, HIPAA.
Compliance testing for this project involved a deep assessment to ensure the platform met HIPAA’s stringent requirements. This process included evaluating data encryption methods, access controls, and audit trails to verify the security and privacy of ePHI. Automated testing tools, such as Selenium for web application testing and HIPAA compliance software like HIPAA One, were employed to streamline the testing process and ensure thorough coverage.
Manual & Automated Testing for a Healthcare Document Management Platform
Final Thoughts
In an era where software drives innovation across industries, compliance testing is no longer optional — it’s the basic principle of responsible software development. With users trusting software with their sensitive data or, in some cases, with their very security, the least businesses can do is ensure full compliance with the necessary regulations. However, compliance does not just benefit the users: it also fosters transparency and accountability, enabling companies to meet stakeholder expectations and thrive in competitive markets. With time, the importance of compliance will only grow, which means that organizations that prioritize compliance testing are going to be better equipped to navigate any challenges and deliver software solutions that are both high-quality and ethically sound.
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