Can I arrange the hosting of my mattress passport myself?
Technically speaking, you can put a mattress passport online yourself: a page with product data, accessible via a QR code, can be built with your own website or server. The answer to whether that is also sufficient is more nuanced. The regulation sets requirements on the storage itself, not only on the content: the passport must remain available for a long period, it must connect to a European registration system, and the data must be disclosed in a structured, machine-readable manner. That is more than building and maintaining a page online.
The boundary between doing it yourself and outsourcing therefore does not lie in the question of whether you can do it technically, but in the question of whether you can continue to fulfil the obligations around that storage, even over the years, even if your company switches software suppliers or stops a product line. Whoever wants to bear that responsibility fully themselves must set themselves up accordingly.
What the regulation requires of storage
The core of the digital product passport is that the data remain findable and accessible for as long as the mattress can be on the market, and for a period after that. This means that a solution must not only work on the day of launch, but must also have a valid link to the QR code attached to or included with the mattress years later. If anything changes in your domain name, your hosting provider or your software system, that link must remain intact or be correctly redirected.
In addition, the passport must connect to the central EU registration system that is part of the regulation. That is not a choice but a technical requirement: data must be supplied in an established format so that supervisory authorities and other parties in the chain can read them. A self-built solution that is perfectly readable for a human does not automatically have to meet the requirements that are set for that machine readability. Which exact requirements these are is stated in the official text of the regulation and the associated delegated acts; that date is currently not fixed.
What you can realistically do yourself
There are parts of the process that should properly rest with the company itself, regardless of who takes care of the storage. Gathering the correct product data, such as materials, origin and maintenance instructions, is work that no one else can do for you: that knowledge rests with the manufacturer or importer themselves. The choice of which information is relevant for your specific mattress line also remains a business decision. In the knowledge bank by subject it is explained which data are requested per situation, so that you can prepare that step yourself before anything technical needs to be built.
What is more difficult to organize yourself are the parts that relate to continuity: a server that remains accessible for ten years, backups that actually are backups, and a connection to a European system that may itself also change. For a company for which IT is not a core activity, this means an obligation that continues alongside daily business operations, even at times when no one else is looking after it.
Where the boundary lies between doing it yourself and outsourcing
The boundary lies not in technology, but in responsibility over time. A passport that works well today says little about whether it will still fit in five years with a system that may have been adapted, or whether the QR code will then still point to a working page. Companies that want to continue managing the storage themselves are well advised to think ahead about who will maintain it over a number of years, what happens in case of a takeover or cessation, and how data security is safeguarded in the long term. The latter also touches on the way in which personal data and business data are stored; how data is secured and stored is a separate consideration alongside the substantive requirements of the passport itself.
Those who prefer not to guarantee that continuity themselves can have the storage and the link with the registration system handled by a party for which that is a core activity. This does not change who is responsible for the accuracy of the data; that responsibility remains with the manufacturer or provider. It does change who ensures that the technical side continues to work for ten years. On how matrapas.eu processes and hosts the data is explained how that division is arranged in practice.
Assess for yourself whether it fits your business
Whether self-hosting is feasible for your business depends on factors such as the size of your assortment, the IT capacity you can structurally free up, and the extent to which you want to keep up with changes in European regulations yourself. A lawyer or the competent supervisory authority can help you with questions about your specific situation; this article describes only the general lines from the regulation.
Would you like to get an impression of what is involved for your mattress line before you make a decision about doing it yourself or outsourcing? With a few questions you immediately see where you stand, completely without obligation and free of charge.