World Standards Day: Celebrating Voluntary Industry Standards

You may have heard of ISO 9001, the standards for quality management systems to help businesses and organizations be more efficient. If you are of a certain age, you certainly recall camera film bearing ISO speed ratings. ISO stands for the International Organization for Standardization and is one of three international standard-setting bodies (along with the International Electrotechnical Commission and International Telecommunication Union) that have designated October 14 as World Standards Day.  

World Standards Day was created to increase understanding of the importance of standardization and acknowledge “the collaborative efforts of thousands of experts worldwide who develop the voluntary technical agreements that are published as International Standards.” 

Standards are created to make sure that products and services work the way we expect them to. They may include specifications, requirements, or guidelines that an industry can adopt for consistency across the industry. Though we may not realize it, standards touch almost every part of our daily lives.  

From the USB ports on our electronic devices to the size of paper, industry standards silently shape our experiences and interactions with technology and services. They ensure that the Wi-Fi networks we connect to function seamlessly across devices, that the quality of the water we drink meets consistent health and safety requirements, and that the tires on our vehicles adhere to rigorous performance and safety criteria. 

Behind the scenes, every day, standards help make our lives safer and more enjoyable. 

Standards are voluntary: they are created by experts in various fields who come together to create solutions to shared problems. Standards benefit both the companies that implement them and the public that uses standardized products and services, such as pedestrian crossings for those who are deaf or hard of hearing and beach access mats for wheelchairs. 

As noted on the World Standards Day website: “International standards bring technological, economic and societal benefits. They help to harmonize specifications of products and services, making industry more efficient and breaking down barriers to international trade. Conformity to international standards can help reassure consumers that products and services are safe, efficient, and environmentally responsible.” 

Industry standards are a striking example of “soft law”: rules and specifications that, unlike the “hard law” of government regulations, are not legally enforceable but that help shape industry conduct nonetheless. They are a form of industry self-regulation. 

Outside of formal standard-setting bodies such as ISO, industry self-regulatory organizations also create standards to guide the conduct and behavior of industry members. We are all familiar with movie ratings (G, PG, PG-13, R) and video game ratings (E, EC, T, M, AO), but we might not have realized they are set on a self-regulatory basis by the Motion Picture Association and the Entertainment Software Rating Board, respectively. 

And you may have noticed that ads for products that require batteries to operate will inform the audience, “Batteries not included.” Ads include this important information because of cases brought by the Children’s Advertising Review Unit, or CARU, of BBB National Programs to correct the misleading practice of showing toys, games, and other products operating without making clear that batteries were needed. For 50 years, since 1974, CARU’s self-regulatory guidelines for children’s advertising have provided guidance to help ensure that marketing to children is not deceptive, unfair, or inappropriate for its intended audience. 

In the digital space, ads served to consumers based on their online browsing activity (known as interest-based or targeted advertising), are marked with a blue, triangular “i” AdChoices symbol, which consumers can click on to learn why they received the ad and opt out of receiving further targeted ads if they choose.  

These AdChoices disclosures are made because of the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory principles for online advertising. Compliance with the principles is enforced by the Digital Advertising Accountability Program of BBB National Programs.  

As the U.S. home of industry self-regulation, BBB National Programs created its Center for Industry Self-Regulation (CISR) to keep industry self-regulation innovating, convening industry leaders to create new codes of conduct, guidelines, and other sorts of standards to address a variety of existing and emerging business or social challenges.  

For example, to address the safety and privacy concerns raised by teens’ digital lives, CISR convened companies with teen customers to develop the TeenAge Privacy Program (TAPP) Roadmap. The TAPP Roadmap includes guiding principles mapping the broad spectrum of potential safety and privacy harms affecting teens onto a concrete set of operational and design considerations to avoid those harms. Businesses can adopt the TAPP Roadmap to create a process specifically designed for also considering teenagers’ unique needs for autonomy and community. 

In another case, CISR convened over a dozen large employers confronting the challenge of avoiding the bias that may accompany the use of artificial intelligence in hiring. Together, these companies developed “Principles and Protocols for Trustworthy AI in Recruiting and Hiring,” anchored around transparency and fairness in using AI in the workplace and aiming to ensure that companies use safe and reliable AI tools that reduce bias and increase inclusivity. The principles cover transparency, fairness and non-discrimination, governance and accountability, and technical robustness and safety. 

Whether developed through the formal processes of international standard-setting bodies or through a less formal self-regulation convening, industry standards can accelerate the development and implementation of solutions to shared problems. World Standards Day is an occasion to remind us that we can all celebrate businesses collaborating to advance the common good.