Bridging global divides with tracking and tracing technology

Product-tracking technology is increasingly available to big players in the value chain connecting producers to consumers, giving them new competitive advantages. Such shifts in technology don't benefit small producers, especially those in developing regions, to the same degree. This article examines the practicalities of leveling the playing field by creating a generic form of tracing technology that any producer, large or small, can use. It goes beyond considering engineering solutions to look at what happens in the context of use, reporting on work with partners in Chile and India and reflecting on the potential for impact on business and community well-being

Privacy and Security Implications in COVID-19 Tracking/Tracing Apps

The problem addressed by this research paper is the lack of data security and privacy in COVID-19 tracking and tracing mobile applications. There have been reports of countless COVID-19 tracking and tracing apps leaking data and making use of geo location, which has left users fearful of their data being misused. This research intends to examine and investigate those mobile applications, their features, and their working mechanisms to disclose potential threats to user data. In case the personal user data gets in the hands of people with ill intentions, the data can be misused to commit illegal activities, putting the lives and legal records of users directly in harm. Hence, this is a crucial topic to be studied and solved in the current times. This research paper will firstly be explaining terms like tracking and tracing in order to make the concept of these mobile applications clearer to the readers. Additionally, this research paper will be presenting a list of all the COVID-19 tracking and tracing that have been available and are active around the world, including the USA. Furthermore, this research paper will be presenting cases of COVID-19 tracking and tracing apps that have been found to have violated user privacy and data security. Then, this research paper will be investigating the features of these faulty covid-19 tracking and tracing applications for flaws that result in unauthorized data sharing. After that, this research paper will be making educating recommendations and suggestions to users to prevent unauthorized data sharing and disruption of their data privacy. Lastly, this research paper will be studying multiple researches done on the same topic previously by researchers around the world and will be providing critical review on those research papers published before this one. By performing research on all the previously mentioned topics, this research paper intends to contribute to the process of solving user privacy and data security issues in COVID-19 tracking and tracing applications

Meta-data alignment in open Tracking & Tracing systems

In Tracking and Tracing systems, attributes of objects (such as location, time, status and temperature) are recorded as these objects move through a supply chain. In closed, dedicated systems, the attributes to record and store are determined at design time. However, in open Tracking and Tracing systems, the attributes are not known beforehand, as the type of objects and the set of stakeholders may evolve over time. Many supply chains require open Tracking and Tracing systems. The participants in the supply chain are individual companies, spread over many countries. Their trading relations change constantly. Usually they participate in multiple supply chains. E.g., a company producing chemicals may serve the chemical industry, the food industry and the textile industry at the same time. Transport companies carry goods for multiple industry sectors. Yet, they play a role in the traceability of all goods they produce or carry. Open tracking and Tracing systems are not dedicated for a certain type of product or object nor for a specific industry sector. They simply record the location, time and other attributes of the identified objects, and store that information in the data store of the object owner, based on the identification (e.g. RFID) tag. What attributes are to be stored is determined by stakeholders, such as (end) users of the object. In some cases (e.g. food) legislation prescribes what to record. An open Tracking and Tracing system therefore needs to be able to dynamically handle the set of attributes to be recorded and stored. In this chapter, a method is presented that enables components of Tracking and Tracing systems to negotiate at run time what attributes may be stored for a particular object type. Components may include scanning equipment, data stores and query clients. Attributes may be of any data type, including time, location, status, temperature and ownership. Apart from simple attributes, associations between objects may be recorded and stored, e.g. when an object is packed in another object, loaded in a truck or container or assembled to be a new object. The method makes use of findings in ontology engineering and of type theory. New types are based on existing types, with some restrictions. Both the range of values of a type and its meta‐attributes (such as cardinality) may be restricted to define a new type. Programmatically, concepts of co‐ and contra variance are used to make the method implementable. The method was developed in two European funded research projects: TraSer and ADVANCE. In TraSer, a truly open and extensible Tracking and Tracing system was developed (TraSer project consortium, 2006; Monostori et al., 2009). In ADVANCE, a distributed management information system for logistics operations was designed and implemented, that makes use of Tracking and Tracing information (ADVANCE project consortium, 2010; Kemény et al., 2011a)

An eco-solution for track & trace of goods and third party logistics

This paper presents a new economic cost-effective solution known as the Web and telephony based method for tracking and tracing of goods and small and medium sized third party logistic providers. Considering that these companies usually operate on very flat margins, a comparison is made of the available track and trace technologies like GPS, mobile phone approximated GPS and Java based cell tracking in terms of costs, operating risks, and other evaluation criteria

The Use Behavior of Tracking and Tracing Services in E-Commerce Logistics

An increasing business transaction can cause rapid growth in online shops and marketplace. One of the affected is an online shop. From several logistic services, tracking and tracing information services are the main focus in this study because online shops as the business partner have a lack of attention in these services. The objective of this study is to investigate the factors of online shop behavior in using tracking and tracing information services.This study used a unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) as the framework. The quantitative data were collected through questionnaires from 207 samples of online shops selling women’s fashion and listed in the marketplace. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) with LISREL 8.70.The result of this study found that “the intention to use” the tracking and tracing information services depend on the effort expectancy (EE) dan social influence (SI), while “user behavior” depends on facilitating condition (FC) and the intention to use. The ease of access factor and learning the tracking and tracing information services are the important factors for the intention to use, whereas electronic devices and internet network factors used by the online shops are the main factors for the user behavior. Logistics companies need to provide information services that can help the online shops in controlling their goods in a good way where the ease of access and learning become the main focus that needs attention. Furthermore, online shops need to facilitate their admins with technological devices and a good internet network to make the admins easy to access information services

Tracking and Tracing in Food Networks: The Case of the Feed Industry

This paper discusses an organisational framework for Tracking & Tracing and quality management in the agriculture and food network and thus providing increased transparency therein. The legal and market environments that especially European companies of the compound feeds sector face today is being analyzed with respect to resulting recent and present requirements. A technological solution for companies and supply chains that helps dealing with these requirements is presented with an organisational glance inside the QM-G system.Tracking & Tracing, Feed Industry, Inter-Organizational Information System QM-G, Agribusiness, Industrial Organization,

Implementing Information System Innovations to Manage Biosecurity Issues in Australian Food NetChains

Tracking and tracing systems are being demanded by customers such as the major Australian supermarket chains, superior food service chains and globally in export markets such as the European Union and Asia. This includes the ability to track products as they move to downstream customers and to traceback where products have been sourced for feedback and to resolve problems. To continue to access these global premium priced markets Australian food organisations need to ensure they meet changing customer requirements. Traditionally information communication technologies to provide tracking and tracing systems have been set up for larger business and industry sectors that warrant the costs of development. Small business cannot always afford to invest in the infrastructure to establish through chain and industry wide netchain based systems. This problem is compounded where businesses are fragmented and spread over large geoographical areas even if they have similar requirements. An action learning approach was taken to identify what is needed in setting up tracking and tracing systems to address biosecurity issues in three small business based netchains (livestock 'A' and fruits 'B' and 'C'). In the livestock 'A' sector fears of a global pandemic has heightened the need for tracking and traceablity processes, combined with preventative actions and rigorous bio-security protocols (e.g. traceability of traffic properties). For fruit 'B' and 'C' movements of produce across state and national borders requires phytosanitary certification to provide assurance to minimize or eradicate the spread of diseases and pests. Concerns or delays in tracking and tracing can result in perishable produce becoming unsalable. A system was identified to suit small businesses and those in niche market industries. The system was based on deployment through the internet. The system had to link in with existing business information systems and business methods, be reliable, able to be tailored to address biosecurity issues and effective in meeting customer requirements. Results presented compare the use of the tracking and tracing system across the three different sectors (animal and horticultural products) and states of Australia. Findings are presented on what was learnt in the process including: identifying business in chains and networks to work collaboratively with; catalysts needed to get commitment to change; and support systems needed for successful implementation across multiple small businesses linked in netchains

Agri-Food Traceability Management using a RFID System with Privacy Protection

In this paper an agri-food traceability system based on public key cryptography and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is proposed. In order to guarantee safety in food, an efficient tracking and tracing system is required. RFID devices allow recording all useful information for traceability directly on the commodity. The security issues are discussed and two different methods based on public cryptography are proposed and evaluated. The first algorithm uses a nested RSA based structure to improve security, while the second also provides authenticity of data. An experimental analysis demonstrated that the proposed system is well suitable on PDAs to