Where the barcode names come from
Scan a shop barcode this app has never seen and it can still tell you what the article is. That answer is not ours — it comes from open datasets other people built and gave away, and this page says whose.
The open food dataset
Names for food and drink come from Open Food Facts, a database of groceries built by the people who buy them, published by the Open Food Facts association and licensed under the Open Database Licence 1.0. It is asked before the catalogue above, because a name written by somebody holding the carton tends to be the one you would recognise.
- It knows groceries the other one does not. A tin, a carton or a bottle bought in an ordinary shop is far more likely to be listed here, and in the language it was sold in.
- It is written by volunteers, so it is uneven. Some entries are thorough, some are a name and nothing else, and plenty of products are not in it at all.
- Scanning still contacts nobody. This dataset is held alongside the app exactly like the other one, so no barcode you scan leaves your own installation.
- The line under a suggested name says which of the two it came from, so you always know whose description you are reading.
The open barcode dataset
The names and brands offered for a scanned shop barcode come from the open4goods GTIN dataset, published by nudger.fr and licensed under the Open Database Licence 1.0. That licence asks that the source be named wherever its data appears. This page is that credit, and the short version of it sits beside every name it suggests.
- It describes the article, not your stock. A suggested name is somebody else's description of the thing in the box, offered so you have something to correct rather than a blank field.
- Nothing is decided for you. Change the name to whatever you would call it on the shelf, and what you type is what this app keeps — the suggestion is never written anywhere on its own.
- Scanning contacts nobody. The lookup reads a copy held alongside the app, so no barcode you scan is sent to the publisher, to us, or to anyone else.
- It does not know everything. Plenty of cartons are not listed, and a few listed names are wrong or in another language. An answer of "nothing known" is the normal one for anything bought locally.
- The names remain theirs. Copying one into your own product is yours to keep and reuse; the dataset itself stays under the licence it was published with.
Scanning, printed labels and what a phone does with them are described on their own page. A phone and its labels