ISO/IEC JTC 1, entitled "Information technology", is a joint technical committee (JTC) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Its purpose is to develop, maintain and promote standards in the fields of information and communications technology (ICT).
JTC 1 has been responsible for many critical IT standards, ranging from the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) image formats and Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) audio and video formats to the C and C++ programming languages.
History ISO/IEC JTC 1 was formed in 1987 as a merger between ISO/TC 97 (Information Technology) and IEC/TC 83, with IEC/SC 47B joining later. The intent was to bring together, in a single committee, the IT standardization activities of the two parent organizations in order to avoid duplicative or possibly incompatible standards. At the time of its formation, the mandate of JTC 1 was to develop base standards in information technology upon which other technical committees could build. This would allow for the development of domain and application-specific standards that could be applicable to specific business domains while also ensuring the interoperation and function of the standards on a consistent base.
In its first 15 years, JTC 1 brought about many standards in the information technology sector, including standards in the fields of multimedia (such as MPEG), IC cards (or "smart cards"), ICT security, programming languages, and character sets (such as the Universal Character Set). In the early 2000s, the organization expanded its standards development into fields such as security and authentication, bandwidth/connection management, storage and data management, software and systems engineering, service protocols, portable computing devices, and certain societal aspects such as data protection and cultural and linguistic adaptability.
For more than 25 years, JTC 1 has provided a standards development environment where experts come together to develop worldwide Information and Communication Technology (ICT) standards for business and consumer applications. JTC 1 also addresses such critical areas as teleconferencing and e-meetings, cloud data management interface, biometrics in identity management, sensor networks for smart grid systems, and corporate governance of ICT implementation. As technologies converge, JTC 1 acts as a system integrator, especially in areas of standardization in which many consortia and forums are active. JTC 1 provides the standards approval environment for integrating diverse and complex ICT technologies. These standards rely upon the core infrastructure technologies developed by JTC 1 centers of expertise complemented by specifications developed in other organizations. There are over 2,800 published JTC 1 standards developed by about 2,100 technical experts from around the world, some of which are freely available for download while others are available for a fee.
Leadership In 2008, Ms. Karen Higginbottom of HP was elected as chair. In a 2013 interview, she described priorities, including cloud computing standards and adaptations of existing standards. After Higginbottom's nine-year term expired in 2017, Mr. Phil Wennblom of Intel was elected as chair at the JTC 1 Plenary meeting in Vladivostok, Russia.
PAS transposition process JTC 1 has implemented a process to transpose "publicly available specifications" (PAS) into international ISO/IEC standards. The PAS transposition process allows a PAS to be approved as an ISO/IEC standard in less than a year, as opposed to a full length process that can take up to 4 years. Consortia, such as OASIS, Trusted Computing Group (TCG), The Open Group, Object Management Group (OMG), W3C, Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF), Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), GS1, Spice User Group, Open Connectivity Foundation (OCF), NESMA, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), Khronos Group, or Joint Development Foundation use this process to transpose their specifications in an efficient manner into ISO/IEC standards.
Scope and mission The scope of ISO/IEC JTC 1 is "International standardization in the field of information technology". Its official mandate is to develop, maintain, promote and facilitate IT standards required by global markets meeting business and user requirements concerning: The design and development of IT systems and tools The performance and quality of IT products and systems The security of IT systems and information The portability of application programs The interoperability of IT products and systems The unified tools and environments The harmonized IT vocabulary The user-friendly and ergonomically-designed user interfaces
Guiding principles JTC 1 has a number of principles that guide standards development within the organization, which include: Standards development conducted with full attention to a strong business-like approach (e.g., cost effective, short development times, market-oriented results) Providing a wide range of quality products and services within the JTC 1 scope and mission to cover identified global needs Promoting the use of its products and services and the timely implementation of JTC 1 standards within the form of useful products on a worldwide basis Ensuring that its user needs, including multicultural requirements, are fully met, such that its products and services promote international trade Recognizing the value of the work of other organizations and the contribution they make to international IT standardization and complementing existing and forthcoming JTC 1 programs through other leading edge activity with the objective of providing the best standards worldwide Providing a standards development environment that attracts technical experts and users having identified standardization needs
Members Like its ISO and IEC parent organizations, members of JTC 1 are national standards bodies. One national standards body represents each member country, and the members are referred to within JTC 1 as "national bodies" (NBs). A member can either have participating (P-member) or observing (O-member) status, with the main differences being the ability to participate at the working group level in the drafting of standards and to vote on proposed standards (although O-members may submit comments). As of May 2021, JTC 1 has 35 P-members and 65 O-members, and thus 100 member NBs. The secretariat of JTC 1 is the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which is the national standards body for the United States member NB.
Other organizations can participate as Liaison Members, some of which are internal to ISO/IEC and some of which are external. Liaison relationships can be established at different levels within JTC 1 – i.e., at the JTC 1 level, the subcommittee level, or at the level of a specific working group within a subcommittee. Altogether, as of May 2021, there are about 120 external organizations that are in liaison with JTC 1 at one level or another. The liaison relationships established directly at the JTC 1 level are: European Commission (EC) Ecma International International Telecommunication Union (ITU), including ITU-T Study Group 16 on Multimedia
Structure Most work on the development of standards is done by subcommittees (SCs), each of which deals with a particular field. Most of these subcommittees have several working groups (WGs). Subcommittees, working groups, special working groups (SWGs), and study groups (SGs) within JTC 1 are: Advisory Groups Title Status ISO/IEC JTC 1/JAG JTC 1 advisory group Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 1 Communications Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 2 JTC 1 Emerging Technology and Innovation (JETI) Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 6 Autonomous and Data Rich Vehicles Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 8 Meta Reference Architecture and Reference Architecture for Systems Integration Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 10 Outreach Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 14 Systems Integration Facilitation (SIF) Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 15 Standards and Regulations Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 17 Meeting guidelines - SD 19 Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 18 Vocabulary Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AG 19 Coordination with ISO TC 20/SC 16 on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Active Ad Hoc Groups Title Status ISO/IEC JTC 1/AHG 4 Collaboration Across Domains Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AHG 5 JTC 1 Standards Made Freely Available Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/AHG 11 Neuromorphic Computing Systems Active Working Groups Title Status ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 4 Document description languages Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 7 Sensor networks Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 9 Big data Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 10 Internet of things (IoT) Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 11 Smart cities Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 12 3D printing and scanning Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 13 Trustworthiness Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/WG 14 Quantum computing Active Subcommittees Title Status ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 Coded character sets Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 6 Telecommunications and information exchange between systems Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 7 Software and systems engineering Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 17 Cards and security devices for personal identification Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 18 Text and office systems Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 20 Cryptographic Techniques Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 21 Information Retrieval, Transfer, and Management for Open Systems Interconnection Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 23 Digitally Recorded Media for Information Interchange and Storage Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 24 Computer graphics, image processing and environmental data representation Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 Interconnection of information technology equipment Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 28 Office equipment Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 Coding of audio, picture, multimedia and hypermedia information Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 30 Open electronic data interchange Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 31 Automatic identification and data capture techniques Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32 Data management and interchange Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 Document description and processing languages Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 35 User interfaces Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 36 Information technology for learning, education and training Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 37 Biometrics Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 38 Cloud computing and distributed platforms Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 39 Sustainability for and by information technology Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 40 IT service management and IT governance Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41 Internet of things and related technologies Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42 Artificial intelligence Active ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 43 Brain-computer interfaces Active Study Groups Title Status ISO/IEC JTC 1/SG 1 Smart cities Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SG 2 Big data Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SG 3 3D Printing and scanning Active Special Working Groups Title Status ISO/IEC JTC 1/SWG 1 Accessibility (SWG-A) Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SWG 2 Directives Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SWG 3 Planning Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SWG 5 Internet of things (IoT) Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SWG 6 Management Disbanded ISO/IEC JTC 1/SWG 7 JTC 1 JAG group on emerging technologies and innovations (JETI) Disbanded
Each subcommittee can have subgroups created for specific purposes: Study Groups (SGs) are chartered to investigate the need and feasibility of additional standardization and/or guidance in a technical area. The main objective of a Study Group is to understand the current activities in a particular area and make recommendations to JTC 1 or a specific subcommittee. Working Groups (WGs) are established to expedite development of one or more approved work items and will exist as long as it has responsibility for approved work items.