The “Capture” standards in the GS1 system are standards for automatically identifying a physical entity or for capturing other data that is associated with a physical entity. At the ISO/IEC SC31 JTC1 level, this area of technology standards is called Automatic Identification and Data Capture (AIDC). An AIDC data carrier is a representation of data in a format that is designed to be machine-readable.
When a GS1 identification key or other identifier is used in an information system, it is necessarily represented using a specific syntax. The syntax that is used may depend on the medium in which the identifier exists; for example, an XML message is text-oriented, while the memory of an RFID tag is binary-oriented.
GS1 standards provide four different syntaxes for identifiers that support progressively broader application contexts:
The GS1 identification keys are the foundation of the GS1 system. However, some GS1 standards make provision for the use of other systems of identification for which some organisation other than GS1 is the issuing authority. For this reason, a classification of GS1 identification keys, drawn from a GS1 perspective, clarifies the relationship between a GS1 identification key and the rest of the GS1 system.
The following classification of GS1 identification keys is used:
The goal of GS1 data standards can be understood as defining standardised attributes for entities, including standardised attributes that may be used as keys to refer to specific entities.
This section defines common data modelling terms that apply to GS1 standards for identification.
An entity is something that is the subject of information in an information system. An entity may be:
Many GS1 standards include normative definitions of data. These include definitions of individual data elements, definitions of “documents” comprised of many individual data elements, and definitions of messages that are exchanged between system components.
To the greatest extent possible, the components of the GS1 system are designed to be broadly applicable across all industry sectors and geographical regions. However, there are often needs that exist only within a sector. A similar pattern sometimes arises among smaller groups of trading partners within an industry and even among the divisions of a single company.
This leads to a hierarchy of standards, illustrated below:
Figure 3‑2 Scope of standards
The GS1 system is a collection of interrelated standards, guidelines, services, and solutions. End users deploy systems that make use of elements of the GS1 system. Each end user will have a system architecture for their deployment that includes various hardware and software components. These components may use GS1 standards to communicate with each other and with external systems. They may also make use of GS1 data services to support certain tasks.
There are four types of artefacts that make up the GS1 system:
■ GS1 standard: Document that provides normative specifications and rules agreed, per due process, by industry and GS1 Member Organisations to meet a business need of the GS1 community. A GS1 standard contains normative statements and are written in such a way that conformance to the normative statements is sufficient for a system component to achieve the interoperability or other goals for which the standard is designed.
