In the February 2024 issue of Tax Stamp & Traceability News™, we described how the International Tax Stamp Association (ITSA) had submitted recommendations1 for a secure and interoperable implementation of the EU Digital Product Passport (DPP) to the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC).
The recommendations highlighted two crucial aspects of the DPP requiring careful consideration: 1) its potential overlap with existing traceability schemes; 2) the need to apply robust security features to the machinereadable data carrier required to hold a critical element of the DPP: the unique product identifier.
In its recommendations, ITSA advocated for a standards-based approach, while proposing additional guidelines to address security and interoperability concerns, in particular for products at risk of noncompliance, counterfeiting, and other types of illicit trade. Indeed, as an organisation sitting at the cusp of physical and digital security, ITSA emphasised the need for initiatives such as the DPP to encompass both kinds of security.
At the time, ITSA confirmed its readiness to assist CEN-CENELEC in the implementation of the DPP.
The association is now happy to report that its recommendations were wellreceived by the standards body and that it has consequently been approved as a liaison organisation to the CEN-CENELEC technical committee responsible for developing standards for the DPP framework and system.
In its capacity as liaison organisation, ITSA will provide added-value expertise to the technical committee through the direct participation of its representatives in committee meetings. Such participation includes the possibility for ITSA to:
While the DPP forms part of the EU’s efforts to transition to a circular economy, and while it is currently focused on products with a significant environmental impact – such as batteries – the European Commission has indicated that the DPP framework could, going forward, be scaled to cover a wide range of products, including cigarettes. Hence ITSA’s interest in helping CEN-CENELEC ensure
that DPP standards take into consideration the interoperability between different systems and the security measures needed to prevent non-compliance and illicit trade.
