By Sarah Clark
The NFC Forum has published a candidate specification for a new NFC Digital Product Passport (NDPP) standard that will enable NFC Forum tags already in use for other applications to also store sustainability data.
“The new NFC Forum standard defines a flexible, data agnostic framework to allow a single NFC tag embedded in a product to store and transmit both standard and extended DPP data using common NFC Data Exchange Format (NDEF) records,” the standards organization explains.
“As being discussed by ecosystem stakeholders and regulators, the overall Digital Product Passport architecture is expected to include both cloud-based systems for online data storage and methodologies to connect products to these systems which are known in the industry as DPP Data Carriers.
“These new standards from the Forum extend the capability of using NFC Forum technologies as data carriers.
“Unlike other expected data carrier solutions, these Candidate Specifications allow static and dynamic data to be hosted and accessed offline using non-volatile memory stored on the product itself.
“Other unique advantages for using NFC Forum technology as a data carrier include consumers’ ownership and familiarity [with] NFC-capable handsets for other use cases like payment and access control, product design flexibility, higher durability, and the ability to be read in harsh environments.
“Additionally, and most critically, by embedding DPP data directly into products, manufacturers can ensure the data is available for the life of the product while also providing additional anti-tampering capabilities.”
“With multiple data models for sustainability under discussion and development by various organizations globally, NFC Forum has created a universal, interoperable, framework that can work seamlessly with any format and field requirements,” says chair of the NFC Forum devices and applications working group Klaus Roehrle.
“With NFC-enabled smartphones already in the hands of most consumers and able to read the NFC-based data, we can foresee that full scale deployment of product sustainability data could be achieved in many products with simply a software update.”
“The publication of the NDPP Candidate Specification marks the latest step in NFC Forum’s ongoing commitment to creating a more sustainable future,” executive director Mike McCamon adds.
“We call on the NFC and sustainability communities to participate and provide feedback on the development of this draft standard to help ensure reliability, interoperability, and compatibility across NFC chips, tags and devices to store and provide access to sustainability data across products and services.”
