This is what a Digital Product Passport actually looks like.

Most explanations of the Digital Product Passport stay abstract: "a structured digital record accessible via a data carrier." Useful, but nobody has ever scanned an abstraction. So we built a complete example you can open right now: the passport of the Meridian PowerCell 500, a fictional industrial battery, published as a clearly labelled live demo. This page walks through it block by block — the QR entry point, the data inside, who sees what, and the proof it is genuine.

The entry point: one QR code

Everything starts at the data carrier. On the Meridian PowerCell 500 that is a QR code encoding a GS1 Digital Link — a web address built from the product's own identifiers, so the same code serves a consumer's phone camera, a retailer's scanner and an authority's inspection tooling. Scan it and you land on the passport; no app, no login for the public view.

This is the carrier model EU rules point to: GS1 Digital Link QR codes or Data Matrix codes, affixed to the product, its packaging or its documentation. The physical object and its digital record are joined by that one square of ink — which is why distributors are told never to cover or remove it.

The data inside: identity, materials, carbon

Open the demo and the first block is identity: product name, model, manufacturer, batch and serial-level identifiers — the facts that pin this passport to this physical battery. Below it sit the substantive sections:

• Materials and chemistry — cell chemistry, critical raw materials, recycled-content shares.
• Carbon footprint — the lifecycle figure the Battery Regulation requires, stated per functional unit.
• Performance and durability — capacity, expected lifetime, state-of-health parameters.
• Circularity — dismantling information, collection and end-of-life routes.

For a battery, the full data model runs to roughly 110+ points, with DIN DKE SPEC 99100 as the guidance standard. Passports for other product groups — textiles, furniture, tyres — will be leaner or different in detail, but the anatomy you see in the demo is the anatomy the ESPR framework prescribes.

Who sees what: public and restricted tiers

A passport is not one flat page. The demo shows the public tier — what any consumer gets: identity, key materials, carbon footprint, safety and end-of-life guidance. Behind it sit restricted tiers for parties with a legitimate need: market-surveillance authorities and customs can see compliance documentation and supply-chain due diligence detail; recyclers see dismantling data.

The practical consequence for businesses: a DPP does not force you to publish commercially sensitive information to the world. It forces you to structure it, and to disclose each element to the audience the rules entitle to it. In the demo you can see the tier boundary marked exactly where the public view ends.

Proof it is real — and what to do next

Two elements make the demo passport more than a nicely formatted web page. First, the eIDAS qualified electronic seal: a cryptographic seal that binds the passport data to its issuer, so any tampering is detectable and the record has legal evidentiary weight across the EU. Second, registry proof: passports are filed with the EU DPP Registry (open for registration from 19 July 2026), and the data must remain accessible for the product's regulated lifetime — up to 15 years — with backup custody so the passport outlives even its issuer.

Now see it for yourself: open the Meridian PowerCell 500 demo passport and scan or click through each block. Then, if you want to know what building one feels like, the interactive walkthrough lets you assemble a passport from sample documents in a few minutes — the same flow PassPer runs on your real spec sheets and certificates.

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