EDGYN

EDGYN développe et fournit des solutions d’authentification et de traçabilité pour lutter contre les contrefaçons, les marchés parallèles et le commerce illicite.

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ID: 478017623725-37

Lobbying Activity

Response to Implementing act under Article 15(11) of the Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU

2 Oct 2017

1. The draft implementing regulation shall be based on recognized and widely used international standards such as ISO standards (15418: 2016 and 6346: 1995) and GS1 standards. The draft implementing regulation defines a certain number of specific rules rather than fully relying on existing international ISO and GS1 standards. This approach will prevent a full interoperability between Member States, but also with other countries that will set up similar systems and with other industrial sectors - such as medicines - for which the traceability system is based on ISO and GS1 standards. This would create an unnecessary burden : • for controlling authorities - customs, OLAF and police forces - that may not be able to control flows of different product categories with the same systems and readers; • for logistics / supply chain operators that handle different product categories, on which track and trace systems have or could be used. They would need to manage several non-compatible traceability solutions, requiring different scanning equipment and IT systems The use of specific rules rather than international standards would also add complexity and could postpone the implementation of the system since: • supply chain operators would have to integrate new, specific solutions • solution and equipment providers would have to develop new, specific, systems and solutions. Taking into account the feasibility of the operational implementation is all the more important that the EU is here aiming at implementing the widest regulated track and trace scheme ever implementing worldwide and will define a direction for other countries willing to implement similar systems. We consider relying on existing ISO and GS1 standards a pre-requisite for a successful implementation. The draft regulation must therefore be amended to ensure full compliance with the relevant ISO and GS1 standards and avoid specific approach and specifications. 2. Specifications on the structure and length of the unique identifiers must be reviewed to ensure unique identifiers can effectively be printed (articles 8 and 11) The draft implementing regulation sets a limit of 50 characters for products’ unique identifiers. Codes of such size could not be printed on products given the speed of manufacturing lines. While defining a maximum length of 50 characters, ISO and GS1 standards recommend a length of 20 characters for serialized numbers. This size is sufficient to carry the information required by the TPD and the FCTC protocol. Articles 8 and 11 of the draft regulation should be amended so that the structure and length of the unique identifier can ensure an effective marking on the products. 3. Electronic delivery of UIs should be the standard / default mode as it is the only one enabling the integration of the time and date stamp in the unique identifiers as requested by TPD and FCTC protocol (see below). Electronic delivery of unique identifiers provides higher efficiency and security than physical delivery and not having the time stamp within the identifier would weaken the integrity of the system. Physical delivery should be at best a derogation. Art 9.3 should be modified accordingly. 4. We want to draw Commission’s attention to the legal and integrity risk carried by the derogation in paragraph 4 of article 21, allowing the encoding of the time and date stamp separately from the rest of the UI. This derogation does not comply with Directive 2014/40/EU and the FCTC protocol as both stipulate that the date must be part of the unique identifier. Given this apparent contradiction to the directive, such derogation can cause a risk to the legality of the implementing act. This derogation will also reduce the level of security of the track and trace system by separating this critical date/time information from the Unique Identifier. Therefore, this derogation, as created by article 21.4, should be deleted.

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Response to Implementing act under Article 16(2) of the Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU

2 Oct 2017

Arjo Solutions designs and delivers solutions for physical and digital identification, authentication and traceability of products to enable its customers to fight against fraud, counterfeiting and parallel markets. Arjo Solutions has been supporting leading private companies and governments in securing their supply chains and their products or documents for over 15 years. We welcome and thanks the European Commission for this opportunity to provide a feedback on the delegated and implementing acts of the TPD. 1. The robustness and performance of security features should be favored over their number The draft implementing decision on Article 16 requires the combination of five different security elements for each product. This approach favors the number of security features to their robustness and hence does not offer sufficient guarantees on the security of the system. The implementing decision should therefore aim at ensuring the robustness of the security features used and shall refer to clear and objective process and performance criteria to select authentication solutions. Provided robust security features are chosen, the minimum number required could be decreased to 2 or 3 reducing the complexity of the system for all stakeholders and giving more flexibility without affecting the security of the system. 2. The list of pre-approved technologies and security features must be enlarged and include innovative digital solutions The list in annex of pre-approved security features creates an obvious discrimination in favor of some technologies and hence some solution providers, all the more than this list has not been established based on clear and transparent criteria. This approach is in breach of the principle of technological neutrality and could be considered as creating technical barriers to trade in breach of the WTO TBT Agreement. Furthermore, this list does not include several proven technologies and especially several of the most recent and innovative ones – such as digital watermarking and digital fingerprinting – focusing mainly on legacy tax stamp based security features. If we take the example of digital fingerprinting, on which one of the authentication solutions developed by our company - Signoptic – is based, this omission is highly surprising : - Digital fingerprinting is a highly secured technology. Similarly to human biometry, this technology generates a unique digital code based on the aleas of the texture of the product, without adding anything to it. Structurally, and contrary to many security features, this security feature can not be copied or reproduced - Digital fingerprinting is a mature and proven technologies, already used by a number of brands to protect their products - Digital fingerprinting has been mentioned in all the reports and the documents disclosed by the European Commission during the process. This list of pre-approved security features should therefore be enlarged to all relevant proven technologies, including digital fingerprinting. Digital fingerprinting can be defined as a vision system and algorithm converting non duplicable aspects of the products and its texture into a unique signature. Digital fingerprinting is an invisible security feature, and both a covert and semi-covert. The implementation decision should also provide for the Member States and the Commission to review and update regularly the lists to include new technological innovations once certified and hence foster innovation.

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