Edition 2 (March 2024): the essence

About this issue

The first edition was well received and reached a wider audience. It was registered as a JTC 21 WG1 committee document (N332) and made available through the ETUC website and a LinkedIn group. ETUC continues to provide the secretariat, and the next issue was planned for early May 2024.

The JTC 21 plenary, 12–16 February 2024

More than 100 participants attended, in person or online. All five working groups reported progress, and the plenary took several formal decisions to move documents into drafting. The Commission presented the final changes to the AI Act ahead of its publication, and signalled that the standardisation request would be extended to new areas such as resource performance and energy consumption.

WG1 (strategic advisory) worked on how horizontal standards, which apply across all sectors, interact with vertical standards for specific domains such as health and transport, and identified ways to avoid conflicts between the two. Its "architecture of standards" document, which sets out how CEN-CENELEC will answer the Commission's request, was put to ballot.

WG2 (operational aspects) was balloting the European adoption of ISO/IEC TR 17894 on conformity assessment, alongside a new work item on conformity assessment requirements specific to the AI Act. On risk management, European adoption of ISO/IEC 23894 was proposed. Because that guidance predates the final AI Act and does not cover all of its requirements, a "home-grown" European standard to fill the gaps was also about to start. ISO/IEC 42001 was to be submitted for European adoption as the quality management reference. Parallel development under ISO lead was proposed for guidelines on testing AI-based systems and for requirements on bodies auditing and certifying AI systems.

WG3 (engineering aspects) was in the final round of joint ISO/IEC and CEN-CENELEC adoption of the document on treatment of unwanted bias, and had started new work on concepts, measures and requirements for managing bias, possibly in parallel with ISO. On data, work began on datasets, to be followed by quality and governance of datasets and data quality for analytics and machine learning. A preliminary work item on a reference architecture for knowledge engineering was launched, and work continued on logging, natural language processing, robustness and computer vision.

WG4 (foundational and societal aspects) reported that the trustworthiness framework was now in full drafting. The plenary decided to start a project on impact assessment in the context of EU fundamental rights. A draft on nudging was in progress, work on competence requirements for AI ethics professionals had begun, and a draft on green and sustainable AI was under ballot.

WG5 (cybersecurity), newly created, was to start on ISO/IEC 27090, guidance on security threats and failures in AI systems, and to discuss technical responses to AI-specific vulnerabilities, in liaison with CEN-CENELEC JTC 13 on cybersecurity.

Getting involved. Readers were pointed to their national standards bodies (Danish Standards, AFNOR, DIN, UNI, BSI and others), all of which have experts in the working groups, and to the partner and liaison organisations: Small Business Standards for SMEs, ANEC for consumers, ECOS for the environment, NGOs such as Adra-E, Equinet, 5Rights and ForHumanity, and ETUC for workers. The next plenaries were announced for Bath (3–7 June 2024) and November 2024, by which time most documents under the request were expected to be well advanced.

ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42

In SC 42 WG1, a handbook for SMEs implementing ISO/IEC 42001 was being prepared, and ISO/IEC 42005 on AI system impact assessment was in its final validation round. In WG3, AI transparency requirements were at a late stage and work on ethical aspects continued. Early discussions on human oversight distinguished two dimensions: how humans take part in the governance of AI as a process, and how a person can actually control or stop an application. Work on the environmental impact of AI ran in liaison with JTC 21 WG4. The issue also reminded non-profit organisations that they can apply for Category C liaison with SC 42, which gives access to working documents and expert meetings, by selecting the relevant working groups and submitting an application form per group to the SC 42 secretariat.

News from the European institutions

AI was a key part of the 2024 Annual Union Work Programme for European standardisation and was expected to stay high on the agenda for 2025. Workstream 12 on AI of the High-Level Forum on European Standardisation met on 27 February 2024 to review outreach actions. The Commission had also begun an evaluation of the Standardisation Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, with a public consultation, surveys and interviews to follow.

The most consequential item was the Court of Justice judgment of 5 March 2024 on access to harmonised standards. In 2018 the Commission had refused two non-profit organisations access to harmonised standards on toy safety, and the General Court upheld that refusal in 2021. On appeal, the Court of Justice found an overriding public interest in disclosure, because harmonised standards form part of EU law by virtue of their legal effects. The newsletter noted that the consequences for other harmonised standards, including the future AI standards, remained to be assessed.

Resources and events for civil society

ANEC and BEUC launched a webpage explaining why and how civil society organisations can engage in AI standardisation, written for newcomers who do not know where to start. ANEC organised an invitation-only webinar on 20 March 2024 on where to draw the line between standardisation and fundamental rights, and, ahead of World Consumer Rights Day (theme for 2024: fair and responsible AI for consumers), an online workshop on 12 March on influencing international AI standards. Further resources included a Danish Standards webinar supported by NSAI Ireland on the role of standards in EU AI legislation, NSAI information videos on AI standardisation with subtitles in seven languages, the HSbooster programme offering free standardisation support to EU-funded research projects, and the first 2024 Small Business Standards newsletter with a report from the JTC 21 plenary.

Looking ahead, the issue flagged CPDP 2024 in Brussels (22–24 May), where ANEC would host a panel assessing how far inclusiveness measures in CEN-CENELEC had come, and where JTC 21 WG2 co-convenor Ansgar Koene would host a panel on inclusiveness in AI standards. It also noted the interim report of the UN AI Advisory Body, Governing AI for Humanity (December 2023), with a final report expected in mid-2024, and a new workstream at the UK AI Standards Hub, led by Alan Turing Institute researchers, on AI in recruitment and employment.

My reading

This issue records the point where the European route began to separate from the international one. ISO/IEC 23894 was judged insufficient for the AI Act and a European standard was planned to fill the gaps. For quality management, the plan at the time was still to adopt ISO/IEC 42001, a plan that was later reversed. The Court of Justice judgment deserves more attention than a single paragraph. If harmonised standards are part of EU law because of their legal effects, then the operational meaning of the AI Act's requirements will sit in texts that the public has a claim to read. That strengthens the case for standards that are not only accessible, but precise enough to be checked.

For the live status of each standard, see the Standards Explorer.

Since then (status September 2026)

Stages for the prEN drafts are drawn from public trackers and commentary as of mid-2026. Verify against the live CEN-CENELEC work programme before relying on them. No JTC 21 deliverable gives a presumption of conformity until its reference is cited in the Official Journal.

Correction, 15 September 2026: an earlier version of this table described prEN 18229 as a three-part series. It has been updated to reflect the current five-part structure.