Which organization maintains Unicode, the standard that encodes emoji?

The Unicode Consortium maintains Unicode, the standard that encodes emoji and text across modern digital systems. It is a nonprofit standards organization that develops, publishes, and updates the Unicode Standard and related technical specifications.

Unicode is much larger than its emoji repertoire. It assigns code points and defines encoding behavior for writing systems, punctuation, symbols, and other characters so that text can be exchanged consistently between devices and software. Emoji are handled through Unicode characters and sequences, while the organization’s Unicode Emoji Subcommittee evaluates proposals and maintains emoji-related data and guidance.

The Consortium works with other standards bodies, including ISO and the World Wide Web Consortium, but they do different jobs. The International Telecommunication Union focuses on telecommunications, the Internet Engineering Task Force develops Internet standards, and the W3C maintains many Web technologies. None of those organizations is the body that maintains the Unicode Standard. Individual companies design the colorful artwork seen on phones; Unicode standardizes the underlying characters and sequences that make cross-platform exchange possible.