Counterfeit Product Identification Using Blockchain Technology: A Comprehensive Framework for Supply Chain Authentication

Abstract

Counterfeit consumer products have become a serious global issue effecting several industries like medicines, electronics, luxury goods and fast moving consumer goods. Existing supply chain management systems offer no transparency and traceability creating vulnerabilities for counterfeit goods to access legitimate marketplaces. This paper proposes a complete blockchain-based framework for counterfeit goods detection and authentication. Our proposed framework uses Ethereum blockchain technology, smart contracts programmed in Solidity and a user-friendly ReactJS UI to create product authentication system that is immutable and transparent. The software allows producers to register authentic products with unique identifiers (UIDs) such as QR codes or serial numbers on the blockchain along with product metadata such as manufacturer, manufacture date, batch data, and product specifications. Consumers and vendors can utilize the UI to authenticate product claims for trust verification. As consumer and vendor users are using the UI, they can even verify authenticity with the real-time capability to interact with the blockchain, while also ensuring data integrity through user tampering and illegal changes. The UI is utilizing the Truffle framework for creating and deploying a smart contract on the Ethereum blockchain, Ganache local blockchain simulator, and web3.js for being able to connect from frontend to the blockchain. Experimental results show a significant improvement in authenticating goods, decreased verification time and increased transparency through the use of our product authentication system. The proposed framework represents a viable solution to significant challenges in product authentication while providing scalability, security and cost effectiveness for global acceptance and use.