ID-Issuer

The Public Health Agency of Sweden has been mandated to appoint a Swedish ID Issuer, in relation to the implementation of Article 15 in the Tobacco Product Directive and the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574. The ID Issuer, will among other tasks have the responsibility to generate and issue Unique Identifiers and Identifier Codes for traceability of tobacco products.

The ID-issuer will have to issue Identifier Codes to the Economic Operators, operators of First Retail Outlets, Facilities and Machines prior to generating and issuing Unique Identifiers..

The ID-issuer will be the designated ID Issuer in Sweden to issue Unique Identifiers for tobacco products and Identifier Codes for Economic Operators, operators of First Retail Outlets, Facilities and Machines in accordance with the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574. Unique Identifiers and Identifier Codes shall be provided by electronic delivery.

Assignment and Scope

The Contractor will be the designated ID Issuer in Sweden to issue Unique Identifiers for tobacco products and Identifier Codes for Economic Operators, operators of First Retail Outlets, Facilities and Machines in accordance with the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574. Unique Identifiers and Identifier Codes shall be provided by electronic delivery.

A user-friendly Self Service Solution shall be established, enabling Economic Operators and operators of First Retails Outlets to, inter alia, electronically request Unique Identifiers and apply for Identifier Codes. The Self Service Solution shall have a high degree of availability and provide confirmation of requests/applications.

The Contractor shall in order to continuously ensure appropriate information security requirements related to provisioning of the relevant Services, maintain an information security management system.

The ID Issuer may establish and charge Fees to the Economic Operators solely for generating and issuing the Unique Identifiers. Fees are to be non-discriminatory and proportionate to the number of Unique Identifiers generated. No specific volumes of Unique Identifiers are guaranteed. The Swedish government are to establish the Fees in a separate regulation, the Fee Regulation [note: the Fee Regulation has not yet been adopted by the Swedish government and will not be adopted before the tender since the Fees are to be based upon the winning tender].

Furthermore, the Contract includes establishing and maintaining a Registry of Economic Operators, operators of First Retail Outlets, Facilities and Machines and corresponding Offline Flat-Files and transferring up-to-date copies of this data to the secondary repository.

The Contractor shall be and remain independent from the tobacco industry in accordance with the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2018/574 (Article 35).

An exit plan shall be established, laying down the procedure for managing the end of the contract duration period and handover to a new ID Issuer.

The Contractor shall provide all the access and information necessary to perform audits of the Contractor. This includes, but is not limited to, information about the issued Unique Identifiers and Identifier Codes and information about the Contractor’s independence from the tobacco industry.

The Contractor shall act with due care, skill and diligence when carrying out its responsibilities. The Contractor shall provide its Services in accordance with good industry practice and comply with Applicable Law, policies, guidelines and/or any project governance protocols issued by the Outsourcer from time to time and notified to the Contractor in writing.

The Contractor will provide services for the tobacco industry which otherwise would have been provided by government entities, including exercise of public authority as regards inter alia charging of fees. It should be noted that the public, including the tobacco industry, may use the Swedish language when communicating with the Contractor and that the Contractor is obliged to respond to such communication in the Swedish language.