For brands
You answer for claims you did not make
As the economic operator, the obligation is yours — including for the recycled-content figure a tier-three supplier sent in a spreadsheet. The fix is not more diligence. It is making each supplier assert their own claim, under their own key.
- Obligation
- Economic operator
- Evidence
- Signed per claim
- Control
- Publication policy
Definition
What does a Digital Product Passport require of a brand?
As the economic operator placing a product on the EU market, the brand holds the passport obligation. It must assemble the required data, keep it current, make the public tier openly accessible, and be able to show a market surveillance authority the evidence behind every claim the passport contains.
That last part is the one most programmes underestimate. The ESPR does not ask you to hold a number; it puts you behind it. Signed supplier credentials are how a brand answers “who told you that?” with a document instead of a recollection.
The difference
A stored claim and a verifiable one
| Stored claim | Verifiable claim | |
|---|---|---|
| Who asserted it | Whoever last edited the record | A named issuer, cryptographically bound |
| When | A modified timestamp, if you are lucky | An issuance date inside the signed credential |
| If challenged | The brand defends it alone | The evidence names the party that made it |
| If the supplier changes | History is usually overwritten | Previous credentials remain valid for their period |
| Independent check | Requires trusting your database | Anyone can verify the signature without you |
What you get
Control, evidence and reach
Publication policy
Decide field by field what is public, what is credential-gated, and what never leaves your tenant.
Signed supplier evidence
Every upstream claim carries its issuer, its date and a signature you did not create.
Gap reporting
See which products are in scope for which act, and which required fields are still missing.
Inspection-ready export
Produce the compliance dataset and its evidence chain in the form an authority asks for.
Post-purchase reach
A scannable product is a direct channel to the owner without an app, an account or a login.
Resale and repair partners
Give partners the data their programmes need through the API, on the terms you set.
Answers
Frequently asked questions
Who is legally responsible for a Digital Product Passport?
The economic operator placing the product on the EU market — normally the brand or the importer. Suppliers contribute data, but the obligation and the exposure sit with you. That asymmetry is the reason to insist every supplier claim arrives signed by the supplier rather than typed into a spreadsheet by your team.
What happens if a supplier’s claim turns out to be false?
Your position depends entirely on whether you can show who asserted it. A signed Verifiable Credential establishes that a named supplier made a specific claim on a specific date under their own key. An unattributed figure in a compliance database establishes nothing, and leaves the brand answering for it alone.
Do we have to publish commercially sensitive data?
No. The ESPR (EU) 2024/1781 separates public information from information restricted to specified parties. Supplier identities, facility locations and commercial terms sit outside the public tier. CirculeID’s default policy keeps them restricted, and the policy is yours to set within what each delegated act requires.
Can we start before our delegated act is adopted?
That is the sensible order. Collecting evidence from suppliers takes far longer than issuing passports, and each delegated act allows only about eighteen months from adoption to enforcement. Brands that wait for the act to be published spend that entire window on supplier engagement rather than implementation.
What do we get out of it beyond compliance?
A product record that resale, repair and take-back programmes can actually run on, and substantiation for sustainability claims that marketing currently has to soften. The same evidence that satisfies a market surveillance authority is what lets a claim be stated plainly rather than hedged.
Next step
Find out what you cannot currently prove
Send one product group. We will show you which claims have an attributable source and which are currently yours to defend alone.