Standards and Regulations

October 2025

JTC 1/AG 15 has a focus on a specific area of outreach activity. Established in 2018 it was the intention to investigate connections between existing standards and regulations, looking at good practice, how standards are used in policy development and regulation and measuring the extent of interactions between standards developers and policy makers.

The initial report from the group has resulted in a longer term activity, to now bridge an identified gap between JTC 1 and policy makers, to enhance communication and the sharing of current and strategic information.

This is being advanced through presentations at appropriate events and conferences, and through short targeted virtual sessions, as a result of Covid interrupting domestic and international travel.

The group is comprised of a wide set of experts spanning the globe, from the western side of the North America all the way east to Japan. The participants have a variety of backgrounds, connections and expertise.

The establishment of this advisory group took quite some time to finalise, as the initial concept and scope covered a vast area, and it was unrealistic to cover all the potential topics and aspects.

During round table meetings in Russia in November 2017 the extensive list of potential topic areas was drawn up and it took the following five months and a lengthy debate, during the May 2018 JTC 1 Advisory Group (JAG) meeting in Japan, to narrow the scope down to achieve realistic targets and deliverables.

The result was the establishment of a new advisory group, AG 15 – Standards and Regulations with the following Terms of Reference:

Gather input on good practice and existing approaches on the relationship between standards and government regulation and procurement

  1. Investigate ISO and IEC guidance documents, e.g., “ISO/IEC: Using and referencing ISO and IEC standards to support public policy.”
  2. Survey of JTC 1 subcommittees and working groups, national bodies, of ISO and IEC TCs on how standards are used in policy development and regulation.
  3. Survey of good practice in national bodies and standards organizations partnering/collaborating with regulatory and policy making bodies, starting with the contributions from Canada (JAG N262), France (JAG N263) and the UK (JAG N308).
  4. Leverage existing work such as those in subcommittee 38 (cloud and distributed platforms) on cloud policy (JAG N279), using and referencing ISO and IEC standards to support public policy, and work in ITU-D for cloud policies for developing countries.
  5. Investigate engagement on key drivers (e.g., those mentioned in South Africa contribution JAG N205).

After 18 months of work, in November 2019, AG 15 presented its report to plenary for discussion and comment. The conclusions of the report led to an agreement for a second phase for the group.

One of the conclusions from the report identified a communication gap between standards developers and policy makers. This aspect prompted a second phase of activity for the group to build on this information and work towards reducing the gap by establishing discussions between JTC 1 and policy makers at relevant events and conferences, and with relevant sector industries that rely on global treaties which are often underpinned by standards.

The Terms of Reference for the second phase:

Utilising the information gathered in JTC 1 N14534 (internal report from advisory group on “Standards and Regulations”) and the recommendations put forward at the JTC 1 Plenary, November 2019:

  1. Strengthen two-way communication between regulators and SDOs by:
    • JTC 1 working closely with ISO and IEC and supporting them by presenting at events with a regulatory focus, events to be identified. Meetings with regulators can include small informal meetings through to large conference events, e.g. IEC Regulator Forum on Renewable Energy.
    • JTC 1 National Bodies, utilizing output from items below, may share at national/regional events held by national/regional regulators.
  2. Strengthening education and awareness of standardization to regulators, through the use of briefing documents and/or presentations at face-to-face meetings with regulators, to answer questions like:
    • What is a Standard? Why do you need a Standard?
  3. Review existing material and prepare new material where necessary, to support the previous actions and make them available for use by the group and other JTC 1 groups including AG 1 “Communications” and AG 10 “Outreach”.
  4. Participate at regulator focused events on “JTC 1 ICT Standardization”, explaining what JTC 1’s current and emerging focus areas are and explore areas or methods for further interaction.
    • Planning for such events can include and/or reach out to regulators to determine what content and presentations would be of greatest value to regulators.
    • These events should be co-located with JTC 1 meetings, which provide an opportunity for more JTC 1 NB expert attendance, while also hitting different locations. These events would be more open than JTC 1 meetings.
    • Planning for these events will be coordinated by AG 15 with JTC1, JTC 1 Advisory Group AG 10 “Outreach” and its SCs as applicable.
  5. Review of options and mechanisms available, to share published standards with regulators.
  6. Identify international UN treaties, conventions, etc., and UN-based organizations as another primary source of requirements for standards development, i.e., as a complimentary new “top-down” approach to standards development versus the existing P-member and SDO based “bottom-up” approach. This added approach will also increase recognition and visibility of JTC1 standards at this international level and can be used as a source of input to regulator focused events on “ISO/IEC JTC 1 ICT Standardization”.

The content for these events was created but with Covid-19 rife through 2020 and 2021, physical meetings did not take place and focus was given to shorter virtual sessions.

AG 15 has also redeveloped the original report, to make it publicly available outside of JTC 1, as the technical information in relation to standards and policies was something that no one else had done before and provides great insight into the use of standards.

Subsequently through 2022 and 2023 AG 15 has continued to work toward having open discussions with policy makers and regulatory bodies and associations.

So far AG 15 has connected with

International Port Community Systems Association (IPCSA)

Chamber of Shipping, in Canada

UK Government

Transport Canada

International Federation of Freight Forwarders Association (FIATA)

International Maritime Organization (IMO)

Japanese Government departments (JIPDEC)

Port of Vancouver, Canada

The 2022 reconstitution of AG 15 was based on the opinion that AG 15’s work, apart from outreach, was actually concluding and therefore was looking to wrap up by November 2023. One of the main tasks on the revised ToR from 2022 – 2023 was to resolve any outstanding topics that have been seen, but only discussed at high level in AG 15. These topics, all of which have regulatory importance have come about through general investigations and analysis of current work and use case inputs from the group’s experts. AG 15 was never tasked to actively work on these subjects but never the less, they were recorded. Knowing that these topics could have a bearing on JTC 1 the 2022-2023 ToR included an action to discuss these, agree if there was any further action required, and if so make suitable proposals to the necessary group(s) to bring it to their attention.

One particularly interesting example is that of climate and environmental impact, which is a major global discussion with most regulators developing plans to address it if not already underway. AG 15 presented this to JTC 1’s new advisory group on Strategic Direction for consideration of a new approach to tackling standards development in the future.

There has been a clear need for AG 15 to carry on working and pursue information relating to regulatory activity that might be of consequence to JTC 1. And as a result of this, the group proposed to JTC 1 to continue their work for another two years, which would see the group work through to November 2025. The discussions to move forward this time were based on three key areas being:

  • To act as a central information gathering entity for information relating to regulatory topics
  • Coordination with regulators and policy makers
  • Collaboration with JTC 1 entities to raise awareness of specific regulatory items that might be of interest to them or that might affect them.

Through its life AG 15 has been logging topics, that were discussed but never actioned, as they were wider and more technical in detail to that of the original terms of reference of the group. This latest update to the terms of reference saw the opportunity to review those topics and to bring the information to the attention of necessary groups, both within JTC 1, but also ISO and IEC.

From 2024 through to 2025, AG 15 continued to discuss regulatory points, ask questions and attempt to hold 2-way discussions with policy makers and regulators. Data collection during this time continued to a point where it was noted that a more robust process was needed to capture, store and enable sharing of information across JTC 1.

In a similar way it was seen that governmental and regulatory considerations were growing, which bought clarity on the future of AG 15, whether it needed to continue its current area of work. Through various inputs to AG 15, it became clear that many groups in JTC 1 have regulatory aspects and hold discussions with policy makers but often there is no available record of these discussions. AG 15 strongly believed that collection and sharing of this data was important to all JTC 1 groups for awareness and reduction in the risk of duplication. In November 2025 AG 15 again proposed to JTC 1 another extension to allow for more outreach and information sharing across JTC 1 related to policy and regulatory issues.