Standards catalog · 2026 August release
SQLBL

Governance

Organization and governance

SQLBL is governed by a General Assembly of member bodies and a Standards Board responsible for the technical work programme.

Governing body
General Assembly
Technical authority
Technical Management Board
Committees
5
Directives
Part 2, 9th edition

Constituent bodies

General Assembly
Annual
Composed of delegates of member bodies. Adopts the strategic plan, approves the budget of the Central Secretariat, and elects the members of the Technical Management Board.
Technical Management Board (TMB)
Three sessions per year
Responsible for the technical work programme: establishment and disbandment of technical committees, allocation of scopes, appointment of chairs, and maintenance of the Directives.
Central Secretariat
Standing
Registers work items, circulates drafts, records ballots, assigns reference numbers and stage codes, and publishes deliverables. Holds the corpus register of record.
Technical committees
Plenary twice per year
Prepare deliverables within an allocated scope through working groups. Report to the TMB and maintain liaisons with related committees.
Editorial panel
Continuous
Applies the Standards Style Manual, Part 2 to drafts prior to publication, checks terminology against SQLBL 1000, and verifies the administrative apparatus of each document header.

Resolutions and ballots

Decisions of a committee are recorded as numbered resolutions in the meeting report. Ballots are conducted by the Central Secretariat over a fixed period; abstentions are recorded but not counted in the majority calculation. A negative vote shall be accompanied by technical reasons, failing which it is recorded as an abstention.

Appeals

A member body may appeal a committee decision to the Technical Management Board within two months of the meeting report. The appeal shall set out the technical grounds and the remedy sought. Work on the deliverable concerned is suspended until the appeal is resolved.

Research oversight

Because the corpus exists to support measurement of contamination, the TMB additionally approves the study protocols listed on the research programme page and reviews the fingerprint register at each session. Fingerprint patterns are not published in full; only their type, weight class and collision estimate appear in public documents.