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Introduction

NIST ITL - ANSI Accredited Standards Developer

The National Technology Transfer and Advancement Act (P.L. 104-113) encourages Federal agencies, as well as state and local governments, to achieve greater reliance on voluntary consensus standards.

To achieve our goals, NIST ITL works with industry and other agencies to develop information technology standards through voluntary consensus standards developing organizations. NIST ITL maintains a listing of our present participation in voluntary standards activities.

NIST ITL (and its predecessor organizations) has been accredited by ANSI as a standards developer since October 5, 1984. We are accredited to develop voluntary consensus standards as a sponsor using the ANSI Canvass Method for the following scope of activities:

"Standards and guidelines for information exchange relating to automatic data processing and related systems".

On a few occasions, NIST ITL has chosen to sponsor the development of an American National Standard via the ANSI Canvass Method because of special government requirements or applications. Presently, NIST ITL has one approved ANSI approved American National Standard:

Data Format for the Interchange of Fingerprint, Facial & Other Biometric Information (ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011, NIST Special Publication 500-290)

This standard is being used for the collection, storage, and exchange of biometric data for government and intergovernmental applications.  See the Registry of USG Recommended Biometric Standards at:  http://www.biometrics.gov/standards/.  Previous editions of this standard are still in use.  Consequently, the current standard and the most recent superseded standards are being made available by NIST ITL.  (See the upper left hand corner of this web page.)