Common gaps in real passports

I'm Daniel Carlman. This episode: what is most often missing in real passports, and how to close each gap.

On the fifth of October 2026, we ran our validator on the ten active passports on our examples page. Four could not be read as data at all. The other six all got a D. Six is a small sample. It shows a pattern, not a statistic.

What held them at D? The commodity code was missing in five of six. The manufacturer identifier, in five of six. And none of the six gave a concentration or a location for substances of concern.

The commodity code. Annex III of the Ecodesign Regulation names relevant commodity codes, such as a TARIC code. For garments, the editor can suggest a code and show the nomenclature’s own text. You confirm it.

The manufacturer identifier. All six carried the operator’s own ID. What was missing was the manufacturer’s. EN 18219 lists schemes for it, such as an LEI, a GS1 identifier or a PEPPOL ID.

Substances of concern. Article 7(5): where they are present, the information must include their name, their location in the product and their concentration. Two of the six declared that none are present. That is an answer. Say it explicitly, and the validator page stops asking for the rest.

And the four that could not be read: their servers returned a web page when a machine asked for data. Serve JSON, as EN 18216 describes, or nobody can check your content.

I'm Daniel. See you in the next episode.

Next time: from a GTIN list to QR codes. This is not legal advice.