Welcome to the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

In todays' complex technology-driven world, the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) has the broad mission of supporting U.S. industry, government, and academia by promoting U.S. innovation and industrial competitiveness through advancement of information technology measurement science, standards, and technology in ways that enhance economic security and improve our quality of life.

Information technology is the acknowledged engine for national and regional economic growth. The push for its adoption in all sectors is overwhelming. The insertion of advanced technologies at national or global scales often disrupts established social processes and interacts with other complex societal systems in unpredictable ways. ITL researchers have developed detailed protocols and operational standards that mitigate anticipated discrepancies in their operation, and established assessment criteria and test data sets for validation of industrial products. Within NIST's traditional role as the overseer of the National Measurement System, ITL is addressing the hard problems in IT Measurement Research. ITL formulates metrics, tests, and tools for a wide range of subjects such as information complexity and comprehension, high confidence software, space-time coordinated mobile and wireless computing, as well as, issues of information quality, integrity, and usability.

ITL has been charged to lead the nation in utilizing existing and emerging IT to meet national priorities that reflect the country's broad based social, economic, and political values and goals. Its extended charge continues under the Federal Information Security Management Act to develop cybersecurity standards, guidelines, and associated methods and techniques. Charged under other legislation, such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the Help America Vote Act, ITL is addressing the major challenges faced by the nation in the areas of homeland security and electronic voting.

ITL seeks to scale new frontiers in Information Measurement Science to enable international social, economic, and political advancement by collaborating and partnering with industry, academia, and other NIST laboratories to advance science and engineering, setting standards and requirements for unique scientific instrumentation and experiments, data, and communications. In the past decade, advances in computing and communications technologies have unleashed the power of the Internet and forever changed the landscape for commerce and government. ITL has played an important role in facilitating this transformation and is engaged in preparing the nation for the next phase of the Information Revolution.

Please take a few minutes to visit our website at www.itl.nist.gov to learn more about how ITL is enabling the future by innovating the IT measurement and standards infrastructure.