Who Sees What in a Digital Product Passport: The Five Stakeholders Explained

A Digital Product Passport is not a single document — it is the same dataset projected differently for four kinds of users. A shopper, a manufacturer, a recycler and a market-surveillance officer each need a different slice of the same product, accessed through a different channel. This is how dpp.gs implements that on top of GS1 Digital Link.

Short answer

Role	Sees	Access channel	Authentication
Consumer	Brand, basic compliance, care, recycling tips, documents	QR / DataMatrix → public viewer	None (public URL)
Producer	Everything — they create and edit the passport	admin.dpp.gs dashboard + REST API	Email + password, then x-api-key
Recycler	Materials, substances of concern (SVHC), disassembly, safety	Recycler portal + new /api/v1/recycler API	Bearer token (login) or x-api-key (long-lived)
Authority	All recycler fields + DoC, technical docs, importer, access log	Authority portal + notified-body API	Bearer token (login) — onboarded by dpp.gs
Partner	Their own member tenants + scan analytics + payouts	Partner Portal at admin.dpp.gs + co-branded landing	Email + password (self-verify) — verified by email link

1. Consumer — the public face

A consumer scans the QR code on the product. The phone camera opens a URL like https://dpp.gs/01/08523456790018 — that is a GS1 Digital Link resolver. The resolver redirects to the public viewer at https://dpp.gs/passport/<gtin>, which renders 14 sections of the passport: product details, compliance, carbon footprint, recycled content, materials, substances, repairability, end of life, battery data, removability, documents.

Consumers do not log in. They cannot see who else looked at the passport. The public viewer hides nothing that is on the passport, but the database does not store any consumer-specific extra data either — what is published is what is shown.

Consumer-level rights come from REACH Article 33 (45-day disclosure of SVHCs) and the Right to Repair Directive (repairability score and spare-parts availability). Both are surfaced in the viewer without any login.

2. Producer / Brand — the data owner

The producer is the legal economic operator under EU 2019/1020. On dpp.gs they sign up as a tenant on admin.dpp.gs, get a GS1 Company Prefix (GCP), and become responsible for every passport that lives under that prefix.

Producers have three access paths to their own data:

Dashboard. The admin.dpp.gs UI gives them product CRUD, CSV import, serial-number batches, QR/DataMatrix downloads, analytics and billing. They see everything about their own products and nothing about other tenants.

REST API. Each tenant has a long-lived x-api-key token shown on the Account tab. It is the same key they would put into an ERP integration to push product data. The API mirrors what is in the dashboard.

QR / GS1 Digital Link. Once a passport is published, the producer can re-download QR + DataMatrix any time and print them on packaging or label rolls.

3. Recycler — the safety user

Recyclers and waste-treatment operators need three things the consumer does not: full material composition (so they know what is in the shred line), substances of concern (so technicians wear the right PPE), and step-by-step disassembly instructions.

On dpp.gs a recycler signs up at admin.dpp.gs/recycler-portal with the company VAT number. After dpp.gs verifies the registration (1–2 business days) the account is activated and an API key is generated.

Recyclers then have two access paths:

Recycler portal. Web UI for looking up a single GTIN, viewing materials, SVHCs and disassembly steps for that product. No need to maintain integrations.

API. GET /api/v1/recycler/products/<gtin> with the x-api-key header returns the same L2 payload (materials, substances, disassembly) as JSON. Recyclers integrate this into their inbound shred-line software.

Recyclers do not see test reports, declarations of conformity or other authority-level data — that is by design under EU 2023/1542 Annex XIII point 2, which distinguishes between repair/recycle data and conformity-assessment data.

4. Authority — the market surveillance role

Market-surveillance authorities operate under EU Regulation 2019/1020. They have the broadest read rights of any stakeholder. On dpp.gs an authority account is onboarded by request — the platform verifies the authority is a real national or EU body before activation.

Once active, the Authority sees, in addition to everything a recycler sees, an extra block in the portal:

Economic operator details. The legal name of the tenant, GS1 prefix, manufacturer postal address, importer / EU authorised representative — exactly the chain of liability the authority needs to issue an enforcement notice.

Conformity evidence. Direct links to the Declaration of Conformity, technical documentation, third-party certifications and notified-body test reports. The test-report endpoint /api/v1/notified-body/test-reports/<gtin> is cross-tenant — an authority does not need permission from the manufacturer to read them.

Recent access log. Last 20 lookups of the passport, with role and country code. This is the audit trail the authority needs when investigating downstream actors (e.g. a recycler that processed a non-compliant battery).

An authority test account (read-only) is available on request for regulators evaluating dpp.gs as a national passport hub.

5. Partner — the orchestrator

Channel partners are compliance schemes, advisory firms, EPR organisations or trade associations (Asekol, EUCOBAT, KPMG, INCIEN, LPP, …) that bring producers onto dpp.gs as part of their existing member service.

A partner self-registers at admin.dpp.gs/partner-register with a slug (e.g. kpmg), name, country and contact email. After clicking the verification link in their inbox the partner is instantly active — no manual approval — and gets a co-branded landing at <slug>.dpp.gs plus an invite URL https://admin.dpp.gs/?partner=<slug> to share with their members.

Partner Portal. Logged in, partners see only their own members: number of tenants signed up under their slug, DPPs live, scan analytics, top scanned products, monthly payouts. They do not see other partners' members or any product data outside their network.

Partners can also register producers on their members' behalf and create products under those tenants — useful when the partner runs the data entry themselves on behalf of advisory clients.

Putting it together

Same database, five projections:

Consumer — read-only, no login, public viewer.
Producer — read/write, dashboard + API, owns the data.
Recycler — read material + disassembly, portal + API, after onboarding.
Authority — read everything + operator chain + access log, portal, after vetting.
Partner — orchestrates a network of producer tenants, sees only its own members, gets a co-branded subdomain.

All five routes converge on the same single GS1 Digital Link URL (https://dpp.gs/01/<gtin>). What changes is the role attached to the request — and that is enforced server-side, not by the client.

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