Standards & Technology
Standards & Technology
Introduction
This section explains the technical standards and concepts that can support Digital Product Passport implementations: how a product is identified, how that identifier is carried on the item, how a scan becomes the right destination, and how records of what happened to the product move between organisations.
These standards are the practical machinery most programmes end up using. They are not, by themselves, the law. Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 requires a unique product identifier, a data carrier and accessible passport information; which specific schemes, syntaxes or services satisfy that is decided by the applicable delegated act for each product group. The existence of a standard does not make it mandatory, and nothing in this section should be read as saying that GS1, GTIN, GS1 Digital Link, EPCIS or QR codes are universally required. Where the difference between a technical standard and a legal requirement matters, follow the link into How Conformity Assessment Works for Digital Product Passports.
European standardisation work specific to Digital Product Passports is still in progress, so the landscape described here will continue to develop. The Digital Product Passport Standards Landscape maps who does what across that landscape and how legal effect differs between legislation, harmonised standards, other standards and implementation choices; the remaining articles cover the established technical components in depth.
What This Section Covers
- Product identity, and the difference between model, batch and item level identification.
- Identification keys, including the GTIN, and how they relate to internal product codes.
- Data carriers: linear barcodes, QR codes, DataMatrix, RFID and NFC, and how they are chosen.
- GS1 Digital Link, which expresses an identifier as a structured web address.
- Resolution: turning one scan into the destination appropriate for the requester.
- EPCIS event data: what happened to a product, when, where and in what business context.
- How identity, events and enterprise systems combine to move product data through a supply chain.
Who Should Read This
Technology teams designing identifiers and integrations, packaging and operations teams deciding how carriers are applied, and product owners who need to understand what the technical choices commit them to. Some familiarity with web technology helps but is not required.
Recommended Reading Order
Start with the map, then follow the stack itself: identify the product, put the identifier on it, make the identifier resolvable, then record and share what happens to it. Article one is orientation; articles two to six are foundational; seven to ten are more advanced and assume the earlier ones.
- The Digital Product Passport Standards Landscape: the map. Who makes law, who makes standards, where CEN, CENELEC, ISO, IEC and GS1 sit, and how legal effect differs across the landscape.
- What is a Product Identifier?: identity versus description, and the levels of identity that everything else depends on.
- What is GS1?: who publishes the most widely used identification standards, and what they actually cover.
- What is a GTIN?: the specific key most trade items already carry, and what it does and does not identify.
- What is a Data Carrier?: how the identifier physically reaches a scanner, and the trade-offs between carrier types.
- QR Codes vs GS1 Digital Link: What’s the Difference?: the distinction that causes the most confusion in passport projects: the carrier, the identifier and the destination are three separate things.
- What is GS1 Digital Link?: expressing an identifier as a web address, and how resolution routes one scan to different audiences.
- What is EPCIS?: event data, and why the record of what happened is separate from the description of what the product is.
- How Product Data Moves Through the Supply Chain: the components assembled end to end, across trading partners and enterprise systems.
- How Will Digital Product Passports Change Product Compliance?: what the shift from static documents to connected product information changes in practice.
Then move to Implementation to turn these choices into delivery work, or to Enterprise Systems & Data Architecture for where the underlying data is mastered and governed.
Published Articles
- The Digital Product Passport Standards Landscape: the map of the landscape: EU legislation, standardisation requests, CEN and CENELEC, JTC 24, ISO and IEC, GS1, the technical standardisation domains, and the difference in legal effect between them.
- What is a Product Identifier?: identity versus description, permanent versus dynamic identifiers, and how GTIN, SKU, serial and batch numbers relate to each other.
- What is GS1?: the standards organisation, what it publishes across identification, capture and exchange, and how it relates to ISO, CEN-CENELEC and EU legislation.
- What is a GTIN?: structure, company prefix, the four lengths, assignment rules, and the misconceptions that cause data quality problems later.
- What is a Data Carrier?: linear barcodes, QR, GS1 QR, DataMatrix, RFID and NFC, with a selection guide and the durability and placement constraints that decide the choice.
- QR Codes vs GS1 Digital Link: What’s the Difference?: why two visually identical symbols can behave completely differently, and why the difference lies entirely in the encoded content.
- What is GS1 Digital Link?: identifiers as structured web addresses, link types, differentiated destinations, and who operates resolution.
- What is EPCIS?: the four event types, the Core Business Vocabulary, the what/when/where/why dimensions, and a worked end-to-end trace.
- How Product Data Moves Through the Supply Chain: identity creation, event capture, information sharing between trading partners, and where the passport sits in the flow.
- How Will Digital Product Passports Change Product Compliance?: the bridge from the regulations to the technology, and what changes for each party.
Further articles in this section are added as the standards landscape develops. They appear here and in the navigation only once published, so this page never links to unfinished material.
About This Article
tieback Knowledge is a continuously maintained reference library covering Digital Product Passports, product traceability, product compliance and related regulations. Articles are reviewed regularly as legislation, standards and implementation guidance evolve.