Standards
GS1
The global, not-for-profit standards body that owns barcodes, GTINs, Digital Link, EPCIS and most of the underlying identifiers in retail and healthcare.
GS1 issues company prefixes (the basis of every barcode), defines product identifiers (GTIN, SSCC, GLN), event standards (EPCIS) and the GS1 Digital Link syntax that powers connected packaging.
Operationally, GS1 has ~115 national member organisations (GS1 UK, GS1 US, GS1 Germany etc.) that issue identifiers and run training. The standards themselves are global.
SmartLinks is built on GS1 identifiers and Digital Link URLs by default, which is why a SmartLinks-tagged product also satisfies most upstream retail and DPP data requirements out of the box.