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How a consumer actually reaches a passport, including without a smartphone
Scanning is the easiest route, but the EU web portal, marketplace product pages, in-store kiosks and a printed copy on request are all part of the picture.
Access to the digital product passport (DPP) has to be free of charge and easy. That single requirement has more design consequences than it appears, because "easy" has to hold for people who are not scanning a code with a recent phone.
The routes
Scanning the data carrier. The most common route: a QR code or similar carrier on the product, its packaging, or accompanying documentation.
The EU web portal. A dedicated public portal acts as a central search engine where consumers can look up and compare information across different products. This matters commercially: it makes product data comparable between competitors in one place.
Online marketplaces. Marketplaces will be required to make the passport easily accessible on the product page, so a consumer can review it before buying.
Other devices. A consumer shopping on a laptop may prefer to open the passport there rather than scan with a phone.
In store. Some retailers offer kiosks or tablets where customers can scan carriers and access product information, and staff can assist. Some offer scanning at a customer service desk.
On paper. Some information will be available as a printed paper copy on request.
Why this list matters to a manufacturer
Three practical consequences that affect decisions you make now.
The passport will be read in a browser you did not choose. Old phones, slow connections, laptops, in-store kiosks. A record that depends on a heavy application or a recent device fails the free and easy access requirement. Plain, fast and standards-based beats designed and fragile.
Your data will sit next to a competitor's. The web portal is built for comparison. This is the part manufacturers underestimate: passport data is not only a compliance filing, it is a public product attribute that buyers can line up side by side. Companies with good numbers gain from that. Companies that filled the fields with the minimum defensible answer will find the minimum is visible.
Marketplace listings become a compliance surface. If you sell through marketplaces, your passport has to be reachable from their product pages, which means the record has to be accessible to third parties in a machine-readable form rather than only through your own site.
What good looks like
A passport that loads quickly on any device, works without an app, presents the public layer plainly, and can be handed to a marketplace or a portal through an interface rather than a screenshot. The requirement is accessibility, not experience design, and the failure mode is building something impressive that a kiosk cannot open.
Sources
- European Commission, *Digital Product Passport: Frequently Asked Questions*, January 2026 update,
- questions 13, 14 and 15.