John Larmouth has been involved with standards activity in ISO and ITU-T, particularly ASN.1, for over twenty years. He is the ISO and ITU-T Rapporteur for ASN.1 and is now retired and running his own consultancy company, Larmouth Training & Protocol Design Services Ltd. He was previously on the academic staff at Cambridge University England, and latterly was a Professor and Head of Department at Salford University England. He continues to be active in standards development, particularly in ASN.1 and its support for XML. The use of ASN.1 as the notation for protocol specification brings him into contact with standardization in a number of fields, including biometrics, smart cards, e-business and intelligent transportation systems.