The UPC process hasn't varied much in 30 years. Products are assigned a bar code that's regulated by the council and recognized by laser light scanners.

Paul McEnroe led the team at IBM that developed the Universal Product Code (UPC) fifty years ago, the bar code used on every product sold in supermarkets and retail stores, along with the scanner ...

In light of the large number of unresolved issues and mixed record of scanner data use to date, the authors offer a series of specific recommendations for immediate and long-term research priorities ...

The program is called Sunrise 2027, as the 50-year-old UPC code is not going away anytime soon, unlike other “sunset” programs like the coming demise of third-party cookies for consumer data tracking ...