Musings On GS1 Compliance, Country Of Origin In Barcodes, And Untrustworthy Suppliers

We’ve been fascinated lately by the traffic on this blog to my recent post on country of origin (COO) not being identified by the country franchise code in the GS1 barcode. The post recieves an ever larger number of fresh reads a day (it is now into the hundreds per day, including weekends). We’ve pondered and actively discussed why this might be.

I think it’s clear: to the general public, there is some perceived relationship, however tightly or loosely coupled, between the country code in the GS1 compliant bar code and the country of the corporate manufacturer. Unfortunately, that’s not what the specification states.

The franchise model GS1 adopted — where someone or something gets a franchise for each country, and in some countries, that was done by the government (making GS1 adoption the law of the land) and then sells GS1 bar code numbers (GTINs) – has led in many ways to its great success. The downside is, to be blunt, the ability of any franchise to sell a certified GS1 compliant barcode number to anyone, anywhere, who can write a check. In other words, GS1 isn’t quite a standards body like, say, the IEEE is. GS1 makes money on the sale of their bar code numbers.

Is there a requirement for a COO designation in a GS1 bar code? No. GS1 made the specification; what they say, goes. And there wasn’t a mandatory COO in the EAN bar code either. This is why, I suspect, GS1 didn’t consider it necessary to “fix” the GTIN. They don’t perceive it to be broken.

Let me take it one step further: it can’t be broken. It can’t be broken because it can’t be mandatory. And it can’t be mandatory because GS1 could never enforce it. That is because there is no way the GS1 franchise in a country can fully determine, much less enforce, the use of a GS1 compliant bar code number it sells.

Let’s take a look at the bigger picture here.

If GS1 franchises attempted to enforce some accuracy of COO in the selling of GTINs, what’s to keep a company from saying, “hey, we plan on building in Malaysia next year and just want to get ready for it?” Can you imagine any scenario where a GS1 franchise or GS1 staff member replies, “well, can I see the building permits?” or anything near that intrusive? No way, that’s never going to be remotely possible.

People are trying to solve the wrong thing by using the country designator to source the COO. The bar code is not  the problem. There isn’t a GTIN that ties back into the GDSN or GS1 global database as “tained milk product totally unfit for human consumption packaged as baby formula.”

The problem stems from a seemingly largish number of untrustworthy suppliers from a certain part of the world who, apparently, will do literally anything — up to and including murdering infants and family pets of unknown numbers of fellow human beings — to make some extra profit. That will never be stopped by a standards organization because it needs to be stopped by the police. What those people have done and are doing is unspeakable and it’s a crime. And the fact that they’re even registering foriegn barcode numbers to attempt further mischief shows this is no accident or oversight.

In other words, it’s not as if some people could be denied a GS1 compliant barcode because they secretly hope to fool unsuspecting consumers into purchasing poisoned baby milk. This is a level of greedy evil way beyond anything that can be barcoded. Those people shouldn’t be denied a GTIN from GS1, they should be denied parole from prison, for as long as they may live.