Enrichment activities are very carefully monitored by the international community to ensure that enriched uranium that has been declared to be for civil use is not diverted for military use, or that facilities are not secretly producing uranium at the enrichment levels required for military use. This is referred to as the nuclear safeguards programme. Commercial facilities implement rigorous accounting procedures to show that there are no discrepancies between the quantity of uranium that enters the facility and the quantity of enriched and depleted material that leaves. Operations are subject to regular monitoring by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, or organisations such as EURATOM that act on their behalf and teams of safeguards inspectors are a common sight at commercial enrichment facilities.

The international community is also well aware of the different technologies that could be used to generate HEU for military use. Each technology requires key knowledge, components and technology so that alerts are raised should any organisation or country seek to acquire such things without good reason.