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The International Organization for Standardization (ISO ) is an
international standard international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...
development organization composed of representatives from the national
standards organization A standards organization, standards body, standards developing organization (SDO), or standards setting organization (SSO) is an organization whose primary function is developing, coordinating, promulgating, revising, amending, reissuing, interpr ...
s of member countries. Membership requirements are given in Article 3 of the ISO Statutes. ISO was founded on 23 February 1947, and (as of November 2022) it has published over 24,500 international standards covering almost all aspects of technology and manufacturing. It has 809 Technical committees and sub committees to take care of standards development. The organization develops and publishes standardization in all technical and nontechnical fields other than
electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
and
electronic engineering Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...
, which is handled by the
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
.Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. 3 June 2021.
International Organization for Standardization
" ''Encyclopedia Britannica''. Retrieved 2022-04-26.
It is headquartered in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
, Switzerland, and works in 167 countries . The three official languages of the ISO are
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, French, and
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
.


Overview

The International Organization for Standardization is an independent,
non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from government. They are typically nonprofit entities, and many of them are active in h ...
, whose membership consists of different national standards bodies. , there are 167 members representing ISO in their country, with each country having only one member. The organization develops and publishes
international standard international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International Or ...
s in all technical and nontechnical fields other than
electrical Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described ...
and
electronic engineering Electronics engineering is a sub-discipline of electrical engineering which emerged in the early 20th century and is distinguished by the additional use of active components such as semiconductor devices to amplify and control electric current ...
, which are the responsibility of the
International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
. , the ISO has developed over 24,261 standards, covering everything from manufactured products and technology to food safety, agriculture, and healthcare. ISO has 804 technical committees and subcommittees concerned with standards development.


Name and abbreviations

The International Organization for Standardization in French is ' and in Russian, ('). The letters ''ISO'' do not represent an
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
or
initialism An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
. The organization provides this explanation of the name:
Because 'International Organization for Standardization' would have different acronyms in different languages (IOS in English, OIN in French), our founders decided to give it the short form ''ISO''. ''ISO'' is derived from the Greek word ' (, meaning "equal"). Whatever the country, whatever the language, the short form of our name is always ''ISO''.
During the founding meetings of the new organization, however, the Greek word explanation was not invoked, so this meaning may be a
false etymology A false etymology (fake etymology, popular etymology, etymythology, pseudo-etymology, or par(a)etymology) is a popular but false belief about the origin or derivation of a specific word. It is sometimes called a folk etymology, but this is also a ...
. (page 20) Both the name ''ISO'' and the ISO logo are registered trademarks and their use is restricted.


History

The organization that is known today as ISO began in 1926 as the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations (ISA), which primarily focused on
mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and mathematics principles with materials science, to design, analyze, manufacture, and ...
. The ISA was suspended in 1942 during
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
but, after the war, the ISA was approached by the recently-formed
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
Standards Coordinating Committee (UNSCC) with a proposal to form a new global standards body. In October 1946, ISA and UNSCC delegates from 25 countries met in London and agreed to join forces to create the International Organization for Standardization. The organization officially began operations in 23 February 1947.


Structure and organization

ISO is a voluntary organization whose members are recognized authorities on standards, each one representing one country. Members meet annually at a General Assembly to discuss the strategic objectives of ISO. The organization is coordinated by a central secretariat based in
Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaki ...
. A council with a rotating membership of 20 member bodies provides guidance and governance, including setting the annual budget of the central secretariat. The technical management board is responsible for more than 250 technical committees, who develop the ISO standards.


Joint technical committee with IEC

ISO has a joint technical committee (JTC) with the
International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
(IEC) to develop standards relating to
information technology Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
(IT). Known as JTC 1 and entitled "Information technology", it was created in 1987 and its mission is "to develop worldwide
Information and Communication Technology Information and communications technology (ICT) is an extensional term for information technology (IT) that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of telecommunications ( telephone lines and wireless signals) and computer ...
(ICT) standards for business and consumer applications." There was previously also a JTC 2 that was created in 2009 for a joint project to establish common terminology for "standardization in the field of energy efficiency and renewable energy sources". It was later disbanded.


Membership

, there are 167 national members representing ISO in their country, with each country having only one member. ISO has three membership categories, * ''Member bodies'' are national bodies considered the most representative standards body in each country. These are the only members of ISO that have voting rights. * ''Correspondent members'' are countries that do not have their own standards organization. These members are informed about the work of ISO, but do not participate in standards promulgation. * ''Subscriber members'' are countries with small economies. They pay reduced membership fees, but can follow the development of standards. Participating members are called "P" members, as opposed to observing members, who are called "O" members.


Financing

ISO is funded by a combination of: * Organizations that manage the specific projects or loan experts to participate in the technical work * Subscriptions from member bodies, whose subscriptions are in proportion to each country's
gross national product The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign ...
and trade figures * Sale of standards


International standards and other publications

International standards are the main products of ISO. It also publishes technical reports, technical specifications, publicly available specifications, technical
corrigenda An erratum or corrigendum (plurals: errata, corrigenda) (comes from la, errata corrige) is a correction of a published text. As a general rule, publishers issue an erratum for a production error (i.e., an error introduced during the publishing pro ...
, and guides.The ISO directives are published in two distinct parts: * * International standards : These are designated using the format ''ISO
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
ASTM ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, an ...
Snnnnn p yyyTitle'', where ''nnnnn'' is the number of the standard, ''p'' is an optional part number, ''yyyy'' is the year published, and ''Title'' describes the subject. ''IEC'' for ''
International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
'' is included if the standard results from the work of ISO/IEC JTC 1 (the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee). ''ASTM'' (American Society for Testing and Materials) is used for standards developed in cooperation with
ASTM International ASTM International, formerly known as American Society for Testing and Materials, is an international standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary consensus technical standards for a wide range of materials, products, systems, ...
. ''yyyy'' and ''IS'' are not used for an incomplete or unpublished standard and, under some circumstances, may be left off the title of a published work. Technical reports : These are issued when a technical committee or subcommittee has collected data of a different kind from that normally published as an International Standard, such as references and explanations. The naming conventions for these are the same as for standards, except ''TR'' prepended instead of ''IS'' in the report's name. For example: * ISO/IEC TR 17799:2000 Code of Practice for Information Security Management * ISO/TR 19033:2000 Technical product documentation – Metadata for construction documentation Technical and publicly available specifications : Technical specifications may be produced when "the subject in question is still under development or where for any other reason there is the future but not immediate possibility of an agreement to publish an International Standard". A publicly available specification is usually "an intermediate specification, published prior to the development of a full International Standard, or, in IEC may be a 'dual logo' publication published in collaboration with an external organization". By convention, both types of specification are named in a manner similar to the organization's technical reports. For example: * ISO/TS 16952-1:2006 Technical product documentation – Reference designation system – Part 1: General application rules * ISO/PAS 11154:2006 Road vehicles – Roof load carriers Technical corrigenda : ISO also sometimes issues "technical corrigenda" (where "corrigenda" is the plural of
corrigendum An erratum or corrigendum (plurals: errata, corrigenda) (comes from la, wikt:errata corrige, errata corrige) is a correction of a published text. As a general rule, publishers issue an erratum for a production error (i.e., an error introduced duri ...
). These are amendments made to existing standards due to minor technical flaws, usability improvements, or limited-applicability extensions. They are generally issued with the expectation that the affected standard will be updated or withdrawn at its next scheduled review. ISO guides :These are meta-standards covering "matters related to international standardization". They are named using the format ''"ISO
IEC The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
Guide N:yyyy: Title"''. For example: * ISO/IEC Guide 2:2004 Standardization and related activities – General vocabulary * ISO/IEC Guide 65:1996 General requirements for bodies operating product certification (since revised and reissued as ISO/IEC 17065:2012 Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services).


Document copyright

ISO documents have strict copyright restrictions and ISO charges for most copies. , the typical cost of a copy of an ISO standard is about or more (and electronic copies typically have a single-user license, so they cannot be shared among groups of people). Some standards by ISO and its official U.S. representative (and, via the U.S. National Committee, the
International Electrotechnical Commission The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC; in French: ''Commission électrotechnique internationale'') is an international standards organization that prepares and publishes international standards for all electrical, electronic and r ...
) are made freely available.


Standardization process

A standard published by ISO/IEC is the last stage of a long process that commonly starts with the proposal of new work within a committee. Some abbreviations used for marking a standard with its status are: * PWI – Preliminary Work Item * NP or NWIP – New Proposal / New Work Item Proposal (e.g., ISO/IEC NP 23007) * AWI – Approved new Work Item (e.g., ISO/IEC AWI 15444-14) * WD – Working Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC WD 27032) * CD – Committee Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC CD 23000-5) * FCD – Final Committee Draft (e.g., ISO/IEC FCD 23000-12) * DIS – Draft International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC DIS 14297) * FDIS – Final Draft International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC FDIS 27003) * PRF – Proof of a new International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC PRF 18018) * IS – International Standard (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007) Abbreviations used for amendments are: * NP Amd – New Proposal Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 15444-2:2004/NP Amd 3) * AWI Amd – Approved new Work Item Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 14492:2001/AWI Amd 4) * WD Amd – Working Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO 11092:1993/WD Amd 1) * CD Amd / PDAmd – Committee Draft Amendment / Proposed Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/CD Amd 6) * FPDAmd / DAM (DAmd) – Final Proposed Draft Amendment / Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003/FPDAmd 1) * FDAM (FDAmd) – Final Draft Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/FDAmd 4) * PRF Amd – (e.g., ISO 12639:2004/PRF Amd 1) * Amd – Amendment (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Amd 1:2007) Other abbreviations are: * TR – Technical Report (e.g., ISO/IEC TR 19791:2006) * DTR – Draft Technical Report (e.g., ISO/IEC DTR 19791) * TS – Technical Specification (e.g., ISO/TS 16949:2009) * DTS – Draft Technical Specification (e.g., ISO/DTS 11602-1) * PAS – Publicly Available Specification * TTA – Technology Trends Assessment (e.g., ISO/TTA 1:1994) * IWA – International Workshop Agreements (e.g., IWA 1:2005) * Cor – Technical Corrigendum (e.g., ISO/IEC 13818-1:2007/Cor 1:2008) * Guide – a guidance to technical committees for the preparation of standards International Standards are developed by ISO technical committees (TC) and subcommittees (SC) by a process with six steps: * Stage 1: Proposal stage * Stage 2: Preparatory stage * Stage 3: Committee stage * Stage 4: Enquiry stage * Stage 5: Approval stage * Stage 6: Publication stage The TC/SC may set up
working group A working group, or working party, is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. The groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdis ...
s (WG) of experts for the preparation of a working drafts. Subcommittees may have several working groups, which may have several Sub Groups (SG). It is possible to omit certain stages, if there is a document with a certain degree of maturity at the start of a standardization project, for example, a standard developed by another organization. ISO/IEC directives also allow the so-called "Fast-track procedure". In this procedure a document is submitted directly for approval as a draft International Standard (DIS) to the ISO member bodies or as a final draft International Standard (FDIS), if the document was developed by an international standardizing body recognized by the ISO Council. The first step—a proposal of work (New Proposal) is approved at the relevant subcommittee or technical committee (e.g., SC29 and JTC1 respectively in the case of Moving Picture Experts Group – ISO/IEC JTC1/SC29/WG11). A working group (WG) of experts is set up by the TC/SC for the preparation of a working draft. When the scope of a new work is sufficiently clarified, some of the working groups (e.g., MPEG) usually make open request for proposals—known as a "call for proposals". The first document that is produced, for example, for audio and video coding standards is called a verification model (VM) (previously also called a "simulation and test model"). When a sufficient confidence in the stability of the standard under development is reached, a working draft (WD) is produced. This is in the form of a standard, but is kept internal to working group for revision. When a working draft is sufficiently solid and the working group is satisfied that it has developed the best technical solution to the problem being addressed, it becomes a committee draft (CD). If it is required, it is then sent to the P-members of the TC/SC (national bodies) for ballot. The committee draft becomes final committee draft (FCD) if the number of positive votes exceeds the quorum. Successive committee drafts may be considered until consensus is reached on the technical content. When consensus is reached, the text is finalized for submission as a draft International Standard (DIS). Then the text is submitted to national bodies for voting and comment within a period of five months. It is approved for submission as a final draft International Standard (FDIS) if a two-thirds majority of the P-members of the TC/SC are in favour and if not more than one-quarter of the total number of votes cast are negative. ISO will then hold a ballot with National Bodies where no technical changes are allowed (yes/no ballot), within a period of two months. It is approved as an International Standard (IS) if a two-thirds majority of the P-members of the TC/SC is in favour and not more than one-quarter of the total number of votes cast are negative. After approval, only minor editorial changes are introduced into the final text. The final text is sent to the ISO central secretariat, which publishes it as the International Standard.


International Workshop Agreements

International Workshop Agreements (IWAs) follow a slightly different process outside the usual committee system but overseen by the ISO, allowing "key industry players to negotiate in an open workshop environment" in order to shape the IWA standard.ATG Access Ltd.
What is IWA 14?
published 11 March 2020, accessed 18 August 2020


Products named after ISO

On occasion, the fact that many of the ISO-created standards are ubiquitous has led to common use of "ISO" to describe the product that conforms to a standard. Some examples of this are: *
Disk images A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image is us ...
end in the
file extension A filename extension, file name extension or file extension is a suffix to the name of a computer file (e.g., .txt, .docx, .md). The extension indicates a characteristic of the file contents or its intended use. A filename extension is typically d ...
"
ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...
" to signify that they are using the
ISO 9660 ISO 9660 (also known as Ecma International, ECMA-119) is a file system for CD-ROM, optical disc media. The file system is an international standard available from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Since the specification ...
standard file system as opposed to another file system—hence disc images commonly being referred to as "ISOs". * The sensitivity of a photographic film to light (its "
film speed Film speed is the measure of a photographic film's sensitivity to light, determined by sensitometry and measured on various numerical scales, the most recent being the ISO system. A closely related ISO system is used to describe the relations ...
") is described by ISO 6, ISO 2240, and ISO 5800. Hence, the speed of the film often is referred to by its ISO number. * As it was originally defined in ISO 518, the flash
hot shoe Canon EOS 350D Hot shoe Proprietary hot shoe used by Minolta and older Sony cameras (Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D">Sony.html" ;"title="Minolta and older Sony">Minolta and older Sony cameras (Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D) A hot shoe is a mounting poin ...
found on cameras often is called the "ISO shoe". *
ISO 11783 ISO 11783, known as Tractors and machinery for agriculture and forestry—Serial control and communications data network (commonly referred to as "ISO Bus" or "ISOBUS") is a communication protocol for the agriculture industry based on the SAE J193 ...
, which is marketed as ISOBUS. * ISO 13216, which is marketed as ISOFIX.


Criticism

With the exception of a small number of isolated standards, normally ISO standards are not available free of charge, but for a purchase fee, which has been seen by some as unaffordable for small open-source projects. The ISO/IEC JTC 1 fast-track procedures ("Fast-track" as used by
OOXML Office Open XML (also informally known as OOXML) is a zipped, XML-based file format developed by Microsoft for representing spreadsheets, charts, presentations and word processing documents. Ecma International standardized the initial version a ...
and "PAS" as used by
OpenDocument The Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF), also known as OpenDocument, is an open file format for word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and graphics and using ZIP-compressed XML files. It was developed wi ...
) have garnered criticism in relation to the standardization of Office Open XML (ISO/IEC 29500). Martin Bryan, outgoing convenor of
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34 ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 34, Document description and processing languages is a subcommittee of the ISO/IEC JTC 1 joint technical committee, which is a collaborative effort of both the International Organization for Standardization and the International ...
WG1, is quoted as saying:
I would recommend my successor that it is perhaps time to pass WG1’s outstanding standards over to OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards), where they can get approval in less than a year and then do a PAS submission to ISO, which will get a lot more attention and be approved much faster than standards currently can be within WG1. The disparity of rules for PAS, Fast-Track and ISO committee generated standards is fast making ISO a laughing stock in IT circles. The days of open standards development are fast disappearing. Instead we are getting "standardization by corporation".
The computer security entrepreneur and
Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...
founder,
Mark Shuttleworth Mark Richard Shuttleworth (born 18 September 1973) is a South African and British entrepreneur who is the founder and CEO of Canonical, the company behind the development of the Linux-based Ubuntu operating system. In 2002, Shuttleworth became ...
, commented on the Standardization of Office Open XML process by saying: "I think it de-values the confidence people have in the standards setting process", and alleged that ISO did not carry out its responsibility. He also noted that
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
had intensely lobbied many countries that traditionally had not participated in ISO and stacked technical committees with Microsoft employees, solution providers, and resellers sympathetic to Office Open XML:
When you have a process built on trust and when that trust is abused, ISO should halt the process... ISO is an engineering old boys club and these things are boring so you have to have a lot of passion ... then suddenly you have an investment of a lot of money and lobbying and you get artificial results. The process is not set up to deal with intensive corporate
lobbying In politics, lobbying, persuasion or interest representation is the act of lawfully attempting to influence the actions, policies, or decisions of government officials, most often legislators or members of regulatory agency, regulatory agencie ...
and so you end up with something being a standard that is not clear.


See also

* * * * * – for sustainability information and linking up with reporting on their 17#
GlobalGoals The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals are a collection of 17 interlinked objectives designed to serve as a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future".United Nations (2017) R ...
indicators * – a set of technical standards maintained by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology, and Certification * * * – the Interface Marketing Supplier Integration Institute * * * * * * * * * *


ISO divisions

Technical Committees of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) include: * – ''Terminology and other language and content resources'' * * * * * * * * *


References


Further reading

* *
''MIT Innovations and Entrepreneurship Seminar Series''


External links

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