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Digital product passport glossary

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A

Applies-from date: The date on which a regulatory obligation becomes binding, typically later than the entry-into-force date of the instrument that creates it.
Attestation: A signed statement by an identified party about a product or a data point. In the DPP context, usually a W3C Verifiable Credential.
Authorised representative: An EU-established person or company holding a written mandate from a non-EU manufacturer to carry out defined compliance tasks, such as keeping the declaration of conformity and cooperating with authorities.
Authority layer: The DPP access layer restricted to market-surveillance, customs and other competent authorities. Contains data confidential to the public and restricted to professionals.

B

Batch-level DPP: A DPP that covers a defined production batch or lot, rather than a single unit or an entire product model.
Battery passport · Battery DPP: The sector-specific DPP for batteries under Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, covering LMT, industrial and EV batteries above 2 kWh.
Blue Guide: The Commission’s guidance on implementing EU product rules. The reference for interpreting concepts such as placing on the market and the economic operator roles.

C

Carbon footprint (product-level): The greenhouse gas emissions attributable to a product over defined life-cycle stages, expressed in CO2-equivalent per functional unit.
Carrier · Data carrier: The physical element (QR, Data Matrix, NFC, RFID) that encodes a product identifier and links to the DPP record.
Catena-X: The automotive data space providing the reference infrastructure for the battery DPP and other automotive-supply-chain data exchanges.
CBAM: Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. Imposes a carbon price on imports of specified carbon-intensive goods, with reporting obligations that overlap with DPP carbon data.
CE marking: Mandatory conformity marking for products placed on the EU market. Not itself a DPP, but referenced by many DPP data points.
CEN-CENELEC JTC 24: Joint Technical Committee producing the harmonised European standards for the DPP under the ESPR mandate.
Circular economy: An economic model that decouples growth from finite resource consumption by extending product lifetimes, reusing materials and designing out waste.
CIRPASS: EU-funded consortium producing the horizontal DPP reference framework and data model.
Commodity code: The classification code (CN or TARIC) declared to customs for imported goods. The DPP registry stores it so customs can match passports to import declarations.
Conformity assessment: The process demonstrating that a product meets the applicable EU requirements, ranging from manufacturer self-assessment to third-party assessment by a notified body.
Content negotiation: HTTP mechanism by which a client and server agree on a representation (HTML, JSON-LD, …) of the same resource. Standard pattern for DPP resolvers.
CPR · Construction Products Regulation: Regulation (EU) 2024/3110, which introduces a dedicated DPP for construction products alongside the ESPR.
CSRD: Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. Entity-level sustainability disclosure; overlaps with the DPP on GHG and substances data but is distinct in scope.

D

Decentralized Identifier · DID: A W3C-standardised identifier scheme where the subject controls the keys, allowing verification without a central registry.
Declaration of Conformity · DoC: The document in which the manufacturer declares, on its sole responsibility, that a product meets the applicable EU legislation. Required for CE marking; distinct from the declaration of performance used for construction products.
Delegated act: A binding legal act adopted by the Commission under authority delegated by the co-legislators. DPP obligations per product group are set by delegated act.
Digital Product Passport · DPP: A structured, machine-readable record of product data accessible via a data carrier, covering composition, origin, sustainability and end-of-life.
Distributor: An economic operator in the supply chain, other than the manufacturer or the importer, that makes a product available on the market, with duty-of-care obligations before selling it.
DoP · Declaration of Performance: Document under the Construction Products Regulation declaring a product's performance against essential characteristics. The digital DoP is integrated with the construction DPP.
DPP registry: The Commission’s central registry indexing all digital product passports. Economic operators must register a passport before placing a product on the EU market; customs use it to verify imports.

E

Ecodesign: Design for environmental performance over the product life cycle. Historically governed by Directive 2009/125/EC, now by the ESPR.
Economic operator: Any actor in the supply chain with legal duties for a product on the EU market: the manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer, the distributor, or in some cases the fulfilment service provider.
EPD · Environmental Product Declaration: A verified, standardised (EN 15804, ISO 14025) statement of a product's environmental impact. Embedded in or referenced by the DPP for construction products.
ePREL: European Product Registry for Energy Labelling. Holds energy, durability and spare-parts data that the DPP federates rather than duplicates.
ESPR: Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. The framework that introduces the DPP across most physical goods.
EU Single Window Environment for Customs: The EU system connecting customs to other authorities’ certificate databases so border checks, including future DPP checks, can happen electronically in one place.
EUDR: The EU Deforestation Regulation (EU) 2023/1115. Requires due-diligence statements proving that cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soya and wood products are deforestation-free, applying from 30 December 2026.
Extended producer responsibility · EPR: Schemes making producers financially responsible for the end-of-life phase of their products. National registration is required in each Member State where a product is sold.

F

Federated record: A record composed by referencing authoritative data held elsewhere, rather than by copying it into a single store.
Forced Labour Regulation: Regulation (EU) 2024/3015. Bans products made with forced labour from the EU market from 14 December 2027, enforced through investigations and customs controls.
Fulfilment service provider: A warehousing, packaging or dispatch service in the EU. Counts as the responsible economic operator for a product when no manufacturer, authorised representative or importer is established in the EU.

G

GPSR: The General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988, applying since 13 December 2024. Every consumer product on the EU market, including online sales into the EU, needs a responsible economic operator established in the EU.
GS1 Digital Link: ISO/IEC 18975 standard encoding GS1 identifiers as web URLs. The most common DPP resolution pattern for consumer goods.
GTIN: Global Trade Item Number. The GS1-standardised product identifier widely used in retail.

H

Harmonised standard: A European standard developed on request of the Commission and cited in the Official Journal. Applying it gives a presumption of conformity with the legal requirements it covers.

I

Identifier: A string that uniquely identifies a product model, batch or instance. Multiple schemes coexist (GTIN, URN, DID).
Importer: The EU-established economic operator that places a product from a third country on the EU market, carrying the corresponding conformity, labelling and documentation duties.
Instance-level DPP: A DPP bound to a single serialised unit rather than a model or batch.
Interoperability: The ability of DPP systems from different actors to exchange and correctly interpret data without bespoke integration.

J

JSON-LD: JSON for Linking Data. A JSON format that embeds a published context defining field semantics. CIRPASS uses JSON-LD.
JWT: JSON Web Token. Compact, signed data format used to encode Verifiable Credentials in many DPP stacks.

M

Market surveillance: The network of national authorities checking products placed on the EU market for conformity with EU law. Primary consumer of the authority DPP layer.
Model-level DPP: A DPP that covers a product model (SKU) rather than a batch or individual unit.

N

New Legislative Framework · NLF: The EU product-law architecture, Regulation (EC) 765/2008 and Decision 768/2008, defining economic operator roles, accreditation, CE marking and market surveillance.
Notified body: A conformity-assessment organisation designated by an EU Member State to assess products against EU legislation before they are placed on the market, where third-party assessment is required.

P

Placing on the market: The first making available of an individual product on the EU market. For goods made outside the EU, this happens when the product is first supplied for distribution or use in the EU after import.
Presumption of conformity: The legal effect of applying a cited harmonised standard: authorities must presume the product, or the DPP, meets the corresponding requirements without further proof.
Professional layer: The DPP access layer for repairers, refurbishers and recyclers. Contains disassembly, spare-parts and substance data beyond the public layer.
Public layer: The DPP access layer available to everyone without authentication. Covers composition, origin, care and end-of-life.

Q

Quiescent data: Data that does not change over a product's lifetime (e.g., composition at manufacture). Contrast with in-life data that updates (e.g., ownership, state of health).

R

Release for free circulation: The customs procedure that turns imported goods into Union goods. The point where customs can check product compliance, and in time a registered DPP with its commodity code.
Reparability score: A standardised score rating how easily a product can be repaired. Incorporated into the DPP for electronics, appliances and (expected) furniture.
Resolver: A server that maps a product identifier to the current DPP record. A critical, long-lived system, URL changes break every product in circulation.

S

Safety Gate: The EU rapid-alert system, formerly RAPEX, where authorities publish dangerous non-food products found on the market, triggering recalls and border refusals.
SCIP: Substances of Concern In articles as such or in complex objects (Products). ECHA database used as an authoritative source for substance-of-concern DPP fields.
Substances of concern: Chemical substances identified by REACH, CLP or other EU regimes as posing risks to human health or the environment. Must be disclosed in the DPP.

T

Technical documentation: The file a manufacturer must maintain to prove conformity: design data, risk assessments, test reports and the declaration of conformity. Must be available to EU authorities on request, typically for ten years.
Trust list: A signed list of authorised issuers and callers, modelled on eIDAS trust lists. Emerging for cross-border DPP acceptance.

U

Unique battery identifier · UBI: The unique identifier required under the Battery Regulation for every battery in scope.
URN: Uniform Resource Name. A namespaced identifier scheme used where a retail-style GS1 allocation is inappropriate.

V

Verifiable Credential · VC: A W3C-standardised tamper-evident signed statement by an issuer about a subject. The trust primitive for DPP attestations.
Versioning: The practice of tracking and exposing successive revisions of a DPP so that prior states remain resolvable and auditable.

W

WCAG: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The W3C standard against which the EU Accessibility Act measures digital services. AA is the EU baseline.