ISO/IEC JTC 1

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++ programming language.
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 is also addressing such critical areas as teleconferences 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 2800 published JTC 1 standards developed by some 2100 technical experts from around the world, many of which are freely available for download.
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 process.
JTC 1 has implemented a "publicly available specification" (PAS) process. The PAS process allows a PAS to be approved as an ISO/IEC standard within 9 months. 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, and Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) 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: 
Guiding principles.
JTC 1 has a number of principles that guide standards development within the organization, which include:
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:
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:
Each subcommittee can have subgroups created for specific purposes:
Subcommittees can be created to deal with new situations (SC 37 was established in 2002; SC 38 in 2009; SC 39 in 2012; and SC 40 in 2013) or disbanded if the area of work is no longer relevant. There is no requirement for any member body to maintain status on any or all of the subcommittees.