Digital Links and linked data for containers?

[VladimirAlexiev]

@OR13 https://github.com/w3c-ccg/traceability-vocab examples (eg example) use URNs like this to identify containers: <urn:epc:id:bic:YMLU3380910>.

This is legit, see https://www.gs1.org/sites/default/files/docs/epc/GS1_EPC_TDS_i1_12.pdf page 39

However, URNs are worse than URLs because you can't resolve them to get extra data.

That's why in EPCIS 2.0 it is recommended to use URL versions of GS1 identifiers.
That's the idea of GS1 Digital Links: how to resolve a GTIN, GLN, GSIN, etc to get info (pages) or masterData (linked data) about the respective objects.

Take a look at these links

• https://github.com/gs1/DigitalLinkDocs
• https://gs1.github.io/DigitalLinkDocs/principles/
• https://id.gs1.org/.well-known/gs1resolver
• https://www.gs1.org/voc/?show=linktypes
• https://id.gs1.org/gtin/9506000134352?linkType=all

And search for these docs

• GS1 Digital Link semantics (2020-11, draft 0.5 to Be 1.2).pdf
• GS1 Digital Link URI Syntax r i1-2 (2021-01-16).pdf
• GS1_Global_Office_Resolver.pdf

(@mgh128 can you say a bit more about digital links? You are so much better than me in narrative)

Question to @nissimsan and everyone else (I don't know whether this is the right forum, or whether that's been discussed..):

• has DCSA considered digital links for containers? It'd need to setup a central resolver that dispatches the request to the data provider of the respective BIC owner (just like https://doi.org does it for DOIs)
• I know that there are a variety of container tracking sites. Is it a feasible case to unify that data and provide it through such links?
• How to coordinate this with GS1? Would they be willing to host a resolver for BICs? <urn:epc:id:bic:..> is valid but at the same time, BICs are not quite officially accepted identifier kind in EPCIS 2

[nissimsan]

Regarding container identification, I don't think this belongs here but rather with BIC.
https://github.com/bic-org/Boxtech

Boxtech does have resolvable URIs for containers. Unfortunately behind a login, but I believe it looks something along the lines of https://app.bic-boxtech.org/containers?search=MSKU0134962

@cmsdroff

[OR13]

If you want, you can use a redirection service like https://github.com/perma-id/w3id.org

To create nice long lived URLs for things... so you could make:

https://w3id.org/traceability/containers/MSKU0134962 resolve to https://app.bic-boxtech.org/containers?search=MSKU0134962...

You can also use this to branch from one LD system to another... for example:

https://www.gs1.org/voc/Place -> (points to) -> http://schema.org/Place

You could make:

https://w3id.org/traceability/containers/MSKU0134962

redirect to:

https://w3c-ccg.github.io/traceability-vocab/containers?search=MSKU0134962

Which in turn could point to:

https://app.bic-boxtech.org/containers?search=MSKU0134962

Here is a similar project that does this for many different prefixed identifiers:

https://identifiers.org/

[cmsdroff]

Thanks @nissimsan for linking me in here, I'll try to help on the below but very interested to follow this along!

Question to @nissimsan and everyone else (I don't know whether this is the right forum, or whether that's been discussed..):

has DCSA considered digital links for containers? It'd need to setup a central resolver that dispatches the request to the data provider of the respective BIC owner (just like https://doi.org/ does it for DOIs)

As mentioned BIC do have Boxtech a database of container fleets and technical details such as tare weight, max gross, iso type etc. It's API accessible for free but not public on a url today. Just so I can understand the request to discuss with BIC, what information are you wanting to get about the container ? Technical details or other such as below the owner and tracking?

The BIC Code identifies the owner but for lease companies they will of course have it on hire to an ocean carrier for example. You can find the BIC Code Owner here and search by BIC Code i.e. CMAU https://www.bic-code.org/container-bic-code/CMAU it could be easily possible here to add some linked data in the page as its public already. Would this be useful ?

I know that there are a variety of container tracking sites. Is it a feasible case to unify that data and provide it through such links?

Some carriers or tracking sites require you to have a commercial agreement and accept T&C's other more open, so i'm not sure fully how this can be achieved for all, but for ocean carriers using the DCSA standards (or others) it could be possible to 'direct' to the BIC Code Holder's container tracking URL for a container, as mentioned lease containers more difficult.

How to coordinate this with GS1? Would they be willing to host a resolver for BICs? <urn:epc:id:bic:..> is valid but at the same time, BICs are not quite officially accepted identifier kind in EPCIS 2

For this one BIC are already doing work on linked data, I think it would be possible to host the resolver on BIC url, just need a steer on what your looking for and I can move this along with BIC, so help me to help you, I just need to understand what's needed :)

Finally is there somewhere current for EPCIS 2 the GitHub links have been removed (or made private) so I can find out how to involve BIC in EPCIS 2 as it was covered in EPCIS 1.

For URLS I already have something in motion for this so /containers/MSKU0134962, facility/GBLIVJMDA and /bic/CMAUwill of course be more readable and easier to link

Look forward to hearing back, im sure we can make some things happen on this with BIC!

[nissimsan]

It's API accessible for free but not public on a url today.

BIC should seriously reconsider this. Public, please - or it might just as well be a urn.

Post-ratification the EPCIS repo was privatized. Find it here instead.

[rlilov]

This is an interesting discussion. I understand it as an attempt to increase the discoverability of container related data (ownership, payload, tracking events) using container number as a key.

Please keep in mind that big number of the tracking sites (that do not belong to ocean carriers) are getting their data by simply scraping carrier sites (very often in violation of carrier TOS). Carriers are (still) tolerating this.

I will be very surprised if DCSA/BIC, being carrier owned/sponsored, move in a direction that makes the task of gathering this information easier.

None of the container information listed above: ownership, payload, tracking history is a public domain.

[nissimsan]

@rlilov, on the contrary, Digital Link-inspired discovery of public domain data should help prevent illicit data resellers.

[rlilov]

@nissimsan , Good morning. My point is that there is no public domain data in any of the content that DCSA/BIC deals with.