Dentsu tracking system.
AIPIA, the Active & Intelligent Packaging Industry Association, held its conference on Smart Packaging in mid-September – it’s first ‘Virtual Congress’.
Smart packaging is used to describe packaging that has functions beyond those of simply containing and protecting the contents. Sometimes referred to as linking the physical and digital worlds, smart packaging splits into two categories, active and intelligent.
Active packaging interacts with the contents to maintain quality and improve shelf life, so it is most often used for foods, pharmaceuticals and other perishable goods. Intelligent packaging typically provides means to communicate with the world beyond the pack, for instance monitoring the environmental conditions or providing information about the pack and the contents. Intelligent packaging also offers the possibility of linking to the internet.
Intelligent packaging is therefore relevant to tax stamps and traceability as it includes barcodes in various configurations, as well as other data carriers and means of communication.
The papers of interest at AIPIA’s conference fall into two categories: those presenting a new or developed technology, and those explaining the benefits of linking the package to the internet – usually via a smartphone – and how this can be done.
We’re all familiar with 1D (one dimensional), or linear, barcodes – the pattern of printed parallel lines used for inventory control and so on. We’re also probably now familiar with QR codes, those small squares that you can point your phone at to link to information on a website (or, these days, to tell your health authority that you have spent time at a given location so they can contact you if someone who has been there at the same time tests positive for COVID-19).
QR codes are one type of 2D (two dimensional) code, but there are now numerous other kinds of 2D code, some of them providing significant data capacity and authentication functions, as well as the ability to link to the internet.
Dentsu Tracking gave a paper showing how its product digitisation system allows full transparency and control over a supply chain, giving as an example the tobacco supply chain in Europe.
Dentsu’s system meets the requirements of the EU’s Tobacco Products Directive, with a unique identifier (UI) issued against requests from manufacturers, so that each pack of tobacco products has this UI and can thus be individually identified throughout the supply chain. The UI can be printed on the pack in a variety of ways, most commonly as a 2D code which can be read by a smartphone in the hands of a professional inspector or a consumer. The image above shows the kind of information that can be displayed for a professional scanning a pack in a warehouse, or a retailer.
Inspectron introduced another method of providing secure traceability using its MagID technology. Inspectron, an Anglo-American security documents company, specialises in – among other things – magnetic inks used to print the readable numbers or other features on bank cheques, passports and similar security documents.
The company has now adapted these inks to use in printed codes – 1D and 2D barcodes, for example. These codes are read by a magnetic reader and can deliver the functionality that is built into the code. Only the proprietary reader can read the code, with the ability to read through a layer that covers the code so that it cannot be seen. Line-of-sight reading is necessary in many otherwise similar codes, whereas MagID can be covered by a packaging layer or a security feature, such as a hologram label.
HD Barcode is another new, proprietary, approach to secure coding. In a paper from HD Barcode LLC, based in Florida, Gary Parish explained this patented technique (US patent no: 503693287).
This 2D printed code can store over 700 kb of data (compared to 3 kb for a QR code) in a square or rectangular shape. It can be as small as a 2mm square and can be combined with a QR or datamatrix code for public use or other security features. Inevitably, it is read by a smartphone with a proprietary app, although for the smallest HD Barcodes a magnifier will need to be attached to the phone.
Methods for economically viable traceability and anti-counterfeiting are not limited to printed codes, though. Smartphones are equipped with NFC chips (near field communication, a wireless technology for connecting items in close proximity), to enable, for example, ApplePay and other phone payment systems. But this means that phones can also communicate with an NFC device in packaging. Such devices are used on tax stamps issued by the Canada Revenue Agency for use on cannabis products.
Several papers at the virtual conference explained the rationale for using these methods of connecting the product packaging, via the consumer’s smartphone, to the internet and product specific or tax authority websites.
But before reporting on those papers, a cautionary note is wise: in a paper from Professor John R Williams of MIT’s GeoSpatial Data Center, he showed how easy and common it is for internet sites to be hacked or otherwise broken into. Did you know, for instance, that on the ‘dark web’ (that part of the World Wide Web that doesn’t show up on Google searches) people are offering to hack a corporate mailbox for $500? Petty cash against the money that this could lead to for the hacker.
So it’s important to build security into any website or database that is accessed by a smartphone when it scans or links to one of these sophisticated traceability and/ or anti-counterfeit features, whether on a tax stamp, a consumer product or an OEM (original equipment manufacturer) component.
Assuming a secure database or website, then the ability to either obtain detailed information about the stamp or product or to get the consumer engaged with the product (or both!) is extremely valuable.
The function of traceability has been described in previous issues of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, so it doesn’t need to be covered here. On the other hand, stimulating a buyer of your product to go to your website to record their purchase, learn more about it and – perhaps without realising it – check its authenticity, provides a level of engagement that is wholly new. As Systech put it in a paper on its e-fingerprinting technology, this is crowdsourcing your anti-counterfeit policing.
