A short messaging service (sms) technology to authenticate consumer products

Abstract

Under normal circumstances, products on display in shops and open markets are expected to have passed through quality control checks at a country’s entry points. However, this is usually not the case as people are able to smuggle substandard goods through the ports of entry into various countries either with the connivance of immigration officers or other law enforcement officers. Sometimes too, the sophistry of these conmen is so advanced that even meticulous officers at entry points determined to patriotically do diligent work are unable to distinguish between genuine and fake products because of the low level of technology at their disposal. In Ghana, for instance, it is very difficult for consumers to differentiate between products that are registered with the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) of their country and that which are not. No wonder, people usually end up buying on the common market cheap uncertified and sometimes expired products. This in no small measure poses a major health risk to the average consumer. This research work seeks to build an SMS system that can aid in the isolation of non-GSA approved products circulating on the markets. A mobile phone user will just have to send a SMS message that contains the barcode of the product and its batch number to a host server for verification and validation. In the design, a DBMS of all certified companies and products are implemented using MySQL. Finally, a GUI is developed for both administrators and users to interact with the system.