Obtaining Voting Membership Home | Search
The standards of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) are developed by groups of experts who operate as Technical Committees (TCs). The TCs operate under the procedures of INCITS, and INCITS in turn is accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). ANSI also represents the United States within the Joint Technical Committee 1 (Information Technology) of the International Standards Organization and International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC JTC 1). The TCs act as the US Technical Advisory Groups (TAGs) to Subcommittees and Working Groups of JTC 1. Some of the TCs also act as the US Technical Advisory Groups (TAGs) to Technical Committees within ISO.

Why should organizations become members of a technical committee?

  • To ensure that INCITS standards and any equivalent international standards meet industry requirements and are created in a timely and efficient manner.
  • Only designated representatives of member organizations can cast votes.
Which organizations can be members?
  • Voting membership is open to organizations directly and materially affected by this work and are willing to participate regularly and pay the designated service fee.
  • In order to be in the voting member category, consultant organizations shall have to declare that their participation is not being funded by any organization already having voting membership.
  • Organizations which are not domiciled in the U.S. can become members of the technical committee, but when the TC is dealing with questions establishing the U.S. position on an international matter, participation and /or voting is limited to representatives of U.S. domiciled organizations.
  • An organization with voting membership shall appoint one and only one principal representative and may appoint one or more alternate representatives.
How does an organization become a member?
  • A representative of a prospective voting member shall attend at least one meeting of the TC, TG, or SG. A representative shall attend the first of these meetings as an observer and reaffirm interest in the work of the TC, TG, or SG.
  • Membership becomes effective with attendance at one of the next two successive meetings and receipt by the Secretariat of applicable fees for the membership year, at which time voting privileges begin. (Advisory members have no voting privileges, but may participate in the business of the meeting. Attendance at ad hoc meetings does not count towards membership.)
     
  • A letter of application on company letterhead should then be given to the Chairman. (The name, mailing address, phone number, and e-mail address should be included for each person.)
     
  • The Chairman will forward the application to the INCITS Secretariat who handles billings.
How is membership lost?
  • The principal and all alternate representative(s) or an organization shall be warned upon failure of the organization to:
    • attend two out of three successive meetings, in which case the membership shall be terminated if not represented at the next meeting; (Attendance is determined by the names on the attendance sheet, which in turn is recorded in the plenary minutes.), or
    • return two out of three successive non accelerated letter ballots if the next non accelerated letter ballot (identified by LB number) after the warning is not returned,
    • An organization fails to perform the above actions when none of the organization's representatives perform the actions.
  • The voting membership shall be canceled by the INCITS Secretariat for failure to pay appropriate service fees within the time specified by the INCITS Secretariat.
When voting membership is terminated the representatives of an organization will no longer have a voting rights if the appropriate dues have been paid. An organization that has had its voting membership terminated shall re-establish membership in accordance with the rules for obtaining membership above. If this membership is re-established within the same billing period and the organization has paid its fee, no new service fee will be accessed.

How are memberships in the TC and the TGs related?

Memberships in the TC and the TGs are essentially separate in that:

  • An organization is required to separately qualify and apply for membership in each group
  • An organization can nominate separate Principal and Alternate representatives for each group if necessary
  • An organizations membership in each group can be lost separately as above
Billing is separate for each membership for technical committees, task groups and study groups.

This is currently interpreted as applying to principal and alternate representatives only.