GS1 standards are well positioned to help fight illicit trade
Over the past years, GS1 has been working with public authorities, economic operators and all stakeholders to study how global standards could add value to efforts to combat the illicit trade. GS1 open standards have been recognised by institutions and economic operators as essential tools in the fight against illicit trade allowing to uniquely identify products in a highly secure way.
The European commission has officially called for the establishment and operation of an EU-wide tracking and tracing system for tobacco products leveraging GS1 tracking and tracing tools.
GS1 open standards are quoted in the new European regulation to fight illicit trade of tobacco
The EU regulation 2018/574 specifically mentions the potential to use GS1 Global Trade Item Numbers (GTINs) to uniquely identify tobacco products and to use GS1 Serial Shipping Container Codes (SSCCs) to identify transport units. This traceability system will contribute to eliminating the circulation of non-compliant and illicit tobacco products, better protect public health and reduce tax losses.
We expect that this early work in Europe will be foundational for future efforts across other sectors and geographies, especially in the 50+ other countries that ratified the World Health Organisation Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products, which entered into force on 25 September 2018.
Relevant information from the EU and WHO
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The EU decided that EU-wide rules were necessary based on the significant cross border trade of tobacco products and the risk of diverging national legislation
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The WHO (World Health Organization) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products were developed in response to the growing illicit trade in tobacco products, often across borders, which poses a serious threat to public health
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Data Capture Specifications for EU 2018/574 Unique Identifiers
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GS1 Specifications for aggregate level UIs generated directly by economic operators can be found within Secondary Repository (Dentsu) Clarifications on Reporting Unique Identifiers, Section 1.2.2.
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The EU Secondary Repository operated by Dentsu now includes specifications inclusive of GS1 EPCIS and EDI XML standards as well as GS1’s algorithm/flat-file specifications. Version 1.3 of Dentsu’s technical specifications and Common Data Dictionary incorporate these important changes. Today, GS1 Data Sharing standards are the only open, international standards for data exchange supported by the EU Secondary Repository. This offers GS1 members the opportunity to use their existing XML messages for event and transactional data to meet EU 2018/574 regulatory requirements.
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GS1 in Europe has published the “Recommendations for EU Regulation 2018/574 implementation while minimising retail supply chain disruption” which provide suggestions to GS1 MOs on how to minimise retail supply chain issues while correctly implementing the recent EU tobacco track and trace rules to fight against illicit trade.
GS1 FIT AIDC Standards (ID and barcode)
This application standard provides a normative GS1 response to a specific regulatory requirement. It covers identification and marking of various entities per the European Commission Implementing Regulation on technical standards for the establishment and operation of a traceability system for tobacco products. If other regulatory authorities adopt the EC approach, this application standard is intended to support their efforts and enable global interoperability.
The purpose of this document is to create standard messages used for the creation and management of identifier codes for Economic Operators, Facilities, Machines and Unit Level Items. In addition, there is messaging for registry responses and for message recall. It is assumed in this documentation that the messages for creating managing Economic Operators, Facilities and Machines will be APIs that will interact with a registry. The information sent to the registry and received from the registry will be in the JSON format.
GS1 EPCIS Application Standard
This application standard explains how to implement the GS1 EPCIS standard to combat illicit trade, particularly in the context of EU 2018/574. This application standard leverages GS1’s existing EPCIS and CBV standards, and introduces new, FIT-specific GS1 normative content.
GS1's EPC Tag Data Standard (TDS) defines the Electronic Product Code (EPC), including its correspondence to GS1 keys and other existing codes. TDS also specifies data that is carried on Gen 2 RFID tags, including the EPC, User Memory data, control information, and tag manufacture information.
The Order message provides the ability for a buyer to order specified quantities of goods and services from a seller for a single shipment to or from a single location.
The Invoice message is sent by the supplier to the customer claiming payment for goods or services supplied under conditions agreed by the seller and the buyer.
GS1 Settlement (Pay) EDI Message
The goal of the Settlement message is to send payment instruction and / or remittance information.
