Ecma International

Acronym: Ecma

Established: 1961

Address: Rue du Rhône 114, 1204 Geneva, Switzerland

Website: https://www.ecma-international.org/

Stakeholder group: NGOs and associations

Ecma International is a global standards development organisation dedicated to the standardisation of information and communication systems. Established in 1961, Ecma has been a pioneer in providing a framework for the collaboration of standardisation and open source. The work is driven by Ecma members to address market requirements, providing a healthy competitive environment where competition is based on the differentiation of products and services and where vendors and users can rely on the interoperability of technical solutions.

Areas of work include the development and publication of standards and technical reports for information and communications technology (ICT) and consumer electronics (CE), with a broad scope of standardisation topics including hardware, software, communications, consumer electronics, the internet of things (IoT), programming languages, media storage, and environmental subjects. Ecma’s pragmatic, flexible, member-driven model is effective in enabling technical committees to form and iterate rapidly on internationally recognised open standards.

Contents

Digital activities

For over 60 years, Ecma has actively contributed to worldwide standardisation in information technology and telecommunications. More than 420 Ecma standards and 110 technical reports have been published, covering areas such as data presentation and communication, data interchange and archiving, access systems and interconnection and multimedia, programming languages, and software engineering and interfaces, two-thirds of which have also been adopted as international standards and/or technical reports.

One of the first programming languages developed by Ecma, FORTRAN, was approved in 1965. ECMAScript® (JavaScript), with several billion implementations, is one of the most used standards worldwide.

Digital policy issues

Digital standards

A large part of Ecma’s activity is dedicated to defining standards and technical reports for ICTs (hardware, software, communications, media storage, etc.). This work is carried out through technical committees and task groups focusing on issues such as information storage, multimedia coding and communications, programming languages, open XML formats, and product-related environmental attributes. Our members are committed to Ecma’s success and progress and follow best practices and efficient processes for the development and approval of standards, making Ecma a respected and trusted industry association. Ecma has close working relations – such as liaisons, cooperation agreements, and memberships – with European and international standardisation bodies as well as with some forums and consortia. Our long-established relationships with other standardisation organisations are well maintained and enable us to publish our specifications as international standards. A list of Ecma standards is noted below.

Technical committees (TCs) and task groups (TGs), covering issues such as access systems and information exchange between systems (TC51), information storage (TC31),

product-related environmental attributes (TC38), ECMAScript® language (TC39), office open XML formats (TC45), and ECMAScript^® modules for embedded systems (TC53). Additional technical committees include acoustics (TC26), software and system transparency (TC54), web-interoperable server runtimes (TC55), and communication with artificial intelligence (AI) agents (TC56).

In addition, ECMA-425 was published in December 2024, specifying a statistical background correction for information technology and telecommunications equipment noise measurements.

Future of standards

The participation in Ecma of many leading global companies ensures not only the acceptance of Ecma standards in European and international standardisation but also their worldwide implementation.

Ecma’s goal in the next decade is to continue to play a key role in the extraordinary development of IT, telecommunications, and consumer electronics by disseminating new technologies and delivering first-class standards to our members, partners, and the standard-user community. Ecma aims to continue to bring in major contributions, move technology from members to mature standards, and collaborate with the world’s major standards development organisations (SDOs).

In December 2024, Ecma established Technical Committee TC55, tasked with defining, refining, and standardising a ‘minimum common API’ surface, along with a verifiable definition of compliance with that API. This is intended to improve interoperability across multiple ECMAScript environments, expanding beyond web browsers, specifically web servers. In addition, Ecma established TC56, a natural language interaction protocol for communication with AI agents. The scope is to specify a common protocol, framework and interfaces for interactions between AI agents using natural language while supporting multiple modalities.

Digital tools

Conferencing technologies

Ecma maintains a pragmatic approach to meeting participation. Our General Assembly typically takes place as a physical meeting to allow in-person discussions and interaction among members. For members who cannot participate in person, remote attendance is possible with videoconferencing and other digital tools.

Ecma’s technical committees hold either physical, hybrid, or virtual meetings depending on their specific needs.

Ecma meetings are typically held outside of Ecma’s HQ. As a general principle, members are encouraged to host meetings. Invitations are by a technical committee member who host the meeting at a facility of their choice.

For meetings, consensus building, and voting, Ecma focuses on being efficient and effective. The meeting place and mode are decided upon by the committee.