Introduction¶

What is a Digital Product Passport?¶

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is like a digital ID card for physical products. Just as you have an ID that contains your personal information, a DPP contains essential information about a product throughout its entire lifecycle—from manufacturing to recycling.

Starting in 2027, the European Union will require DPPs for many product categories (batteries, textiles, electronics, etc.) as part of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). These passports help consumers, businesses, and regulators understand:

What is the product made of?
Where did it come from?
How can it be repaired, recycled, or disposed of?
Who manufactured it and under what conditions?

What is dppvalidator?¶

dppvalidator is a Python library that checks whether your Digital Product Passport data is correctly formatted and complete. Think of it as a spell-checker, but for product data instead of text.

What dppvalidator does¶

✅ Validates structure — Checks that your DPP data follows the correct format
✅ Checks required fields — Ensures all mandatory information is present
✅ Verifies data types — Confirms that numbers are numbers, dates are dates, etc.
✅ Validates against standards — Checks compliance with EU/UNECE standards
✅ Provides clear error messages — Tells you exactly what's wrong and where
✅ Exports to standard formats — Converts your data to JSON-LD for interoperability

What dppvalidator does NOT do¶

❌ Create DPP content for you — You still need to gather and enter your product data
❌ Verify factual accuracy — It can't tell if your product really weighs 5kg; it only checks that you provided a valid weight value
❌ Connect to government systems — It's a validation tool, not a submission portal
❌ Store your data — It processes data in memory and doesn't maintain a database
❌ Provide legal advice — Always consult legal experts for regulatory compliance

Who is this for?¶

You are...	dppvalidator helps you...
A developer	Integrate DPP validation into your applications
A data engineer	Ensure data quality before submission
A product manager	Verify that your DPP data is complete
A compliance officer	Check data against regulatory requirements

How does it work?¶

flowchart LR
    A[Your Product Data] --> B[dppvalidator]
    B --> C{Result}
    C -->|Valid| D[✓ Success]
    C -->|Invalid| E[✗ Errors List]

You provide product passport data (as JSON)
dppvalidator checks it against official schemas and rules
You get a clear report: either "valid" or a list of specific issues to fix

Real-World Analogy¶

Imagine you're filling out a tax form:

dppvalidator is like tax software that highlights empty required fields, flags when you've entered text where a number should be, and warns if you forgot to sign
It won't fill in the numbers for you or guarantee the IRS will accept your return
It will catch obvious mistakes before you submit

Next Steps¶

Ready to get started?