ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 Coded character sets is a standardization subcommittee of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), that develops and facilitates standards within the field of coded character sets. The international secretariat of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 is the Japanese Industrial Standards Committee (JISC), located in Japan.[1] SC 2 is responsible for the development of the Universal Coded Character Set standard (ISO/IEC 10646), which is the international standard corresponding to the Unicode Standard.
The subcommittee was established in 1987 under ISO/TC 97 as ISO/TC 97/SC 2, originally with the title "Character Sets and Information Coding", with the area of work being, "the standardization of bit and byte coded representation of information for interchange including among others, sets of graphic characters, of control functions, of picture elements and audio information coding of text for processing and interchange; code extension techniques; implementation of these coded representations on interchange media and transmission systems".[2] When the Joint Technical Committee, ISO/IEC JTC 1, was established in 1987 as a merger between ISO/TC 97, Information Technology, and IEC/TC 83, the subcommittee was transferred into JTC 1, becoming ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2. Certain standards that are now under the jurisdiction of the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2, such as ISO/IEC 646, were published before the creation of ISO/IEC JTC 1, under ISO/TC 97.[3] The original working groups (WGs) of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 were:
In 1991, WG 8, which had held the JBIG, JPEG and MPEG experts activities, was promoted to become its own subcommittee, creating ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29. Over the years, the subcommittee has established or disbanded WGs in response to changing standardization needs within the field of coded character sets.[2]
The scope of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 is "Standardization of graphic character sets and their characteristics, including:"[4]
Following the creation of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 29 in 1991, the scope of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 does not include audio and picture coding.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2 has one active working group (WG), which maintains the standard for the Universal Coded Character Set (ISO/IEC 10646). The focus of this WG is described in the group's terms of reference. That WGis:[2][4][5][1]