InfoCons’ unique, internationally unique, independently developed and transparent InfoCons website provides you with:
- Scanning QR codes on energy labels of household appliances and electronic devices;
- Scanning barcodes of agri-food products to find out ingredients, number and type of food additives, allergens, amount of sugar, salt, calories;
- All useful and emergency numbers locally, nationally and internationally;
- Food and non-food alerts;
- Waiting times at road border crossing points in Romania;
- Verification of travel agencies, accommodation units (hotels, boarding houses, hostels, etc.) and licensed and authorized catering units in Romania;
- Terminology dictionary in the field of consumer protection, environment, banking finance, work, insurance, energy, etc.
- Up to 3 free personalized QR codes for those who have an account in the Application. You can monitor your QR code scanning traffic and more;
- The ability to receive “ rewards” by performing daily and/or unique actions, available in the My Account section
The FREE InfoCons app is available in 33 languages and supports consumers with useful, accurate, transparent and understandable information!
How does the FREE InfoCons app work?
The InfoCons app is organised in a minimalist way, with intuitively named buttons alongside descriptive icons. This makes it quick and easy for every consumer to access the buttons in the InfoCons app without any problems. And, to support consumers, the following is a guide to the buttons in the FREE InfoCons app.
Once the app is opened, the consumer is greeted by a short tutorial of the features in the app, which can be watched or skipped via the “skip” button.
Further on, on the first page of the application, the consumer finds the buttons related to the facilities in the application, namely SOS, Alerts, Saved Products, Barcode/QR Code Scan, Menu, Dictionary of terms, ingredients, additives, Distribute, Account Login.
The “SOS” button together with the “!” icon redirects the consumer to a detailed list of all useful and emergency numbers in each country. Once this button is clicked, the consumer has the possibility to access from the list the country they are in or where they want to travel to quickly find all the numbers they need in English and the language of the selected country.
Emergency numbers can be called directly from the app by pressing the number of interest.
For Romania, consumers can also find out the waiting times at road border crossing points in real time, along with a map and list of entry and exit points.
The “Alerts” button, depicted with the “bell” icon, sends the consumer directly to the updated list of rapid alerts for food and non-food products according to EU standards.
Rapid Food Alerts include information such as:
- Date the alert was issued (from most recent to oldest);
- Explicit product description;
- Countries concerned;
- Problem identified with the product;
- Degree of risk (from low, undetermined to serious)
Information is essential for consumers, helping them to make informed product choices. So if a product is covered by one of the Rapid Food Alerts, consumers can avoid potential problems that may arise.
In terms of non-food quick alerts, the app renders:
- Product name
- Target country;
- Degree of risk;
- Product overview;
- Date on which the alert enters into force;
- Image of the product subject of the alert;
The “Saved products” button directs the consumer to a list of all the products they have saved from the scan. This section allows the consumer to select the products they want to eat at a meal, with which they want to compose their daily menu or recipes, to find out:
- Total amount of sugar;
- Total amount of salt;
- Total number of food additives (E’s);
- How many times a particular food additive is repeated;
- Total number of
- How much you have to walk, run, cycle to burn calories from the food you have consumed
The “Scan Barcode/QR Code” button supports consumers with two important functions:
- By scanning the barcode of agri-food products, you have direct access on your mobile phone to:
- Instant display of information on agri-food labels in the selected language
- Ingredients in the scanned product
- Number and type of food additives accompanied by an explicit description;
- Number and type of allergens found in the scanned product;
- Nutritional values (amount of salt, sugar and calories);
- Calculator where you can enter the amount of product consumed to instantly find out the amount of salt and sugar, the number of calories and the sports activities required to burn calories (walking, running and cycling);
- Possibility to rate products from 1 to 5;
- Saving the scanned product in the “Saved Products” section, allowing consumers to create their own shopping list, daily/weekly menu, recipes From the “Saved Products” section, by simply ticking the products, consumers can find out the total number of E’s, the total amount of sugar and the total amount of salt.
- Customise the app according to your consumption preferences: maximum number of E’s and their type, maximum salt, maximum sugar, allergen type and maximum calories, minimum InfoScore, minimum Pro InfoScore, minimum Eco InfoScore.
- Each barcode scan is saved in the “Scan History” so that this list can be accessed whenever needed, in case the product was not saved at the time of scanning.
Your Choice button – Shows whether or not the product fits your consumer preferences, based on the settings in the “My Choice” section
Save button – By pressing this button, the product is “sent” directly to the list of saved products. This allows the consumer to review the products they have saved and also, by simply selecting them from the list, find out the total number of E’s, as well as how many times a particular food additive is repeated, the total amount of salt and the total amount of sugar.
Product Ratings – Consumers can vote for products they scan or already have in their list of saved products, giving them stars from 1 to 5. They can also see their rating by averaging the stars given by other consumers.
InfoScore – is calculated based on the number of food additives in a product, and is a system that ranks agri-food products, taking into account the synthetic additives added to the food. InfoScore takes into account the number of food additives, but also the nutritional values of a product (energy value, fat, fatty acids, sugar, salt, etc.).
Eco InfoScore – is calculated based on the number of food additives, also taking into account the environmental impact of the products. Citizens as consumers can therefore make informed decisions, taking into account the environmental component.
Pro InfoScore – is calculated based on the number of food additives and also taking into account the degree of processing that the food has undergone.
Ingredients section – This section displays the ingredients of the scanned product in the language selected by the consumer. This means that the ingredients on the label are rendered directly to your mobile phone in a split second.
Food Additives section – Food additives are listed in an explicit form, along with their number when simply scanning the products. While previously the consumer could be misled by the overly technical and complex terminology, InfoCons now shows how many food additives are in the scanned product and what they are.
Allergens section – This section alerts the consumer to the number and type of allergens. In this way, the consumer finds out in advance if the scanned product contains an ingredient to which he/she is allergic.
Warnings section – This section warns consumers about exceeding the maximum amount of salt or sugar recommended by the World Health Organization.
Nutrition Facts section – This section brings to the consumer’s attention the nutritional values on the scanned product label. The amount of sugar, amount of salt, calories are displayed directly on the mobile phone.
Calculator section – A useful section for those who want to keep fit, is the one dedicated to calculating the minutes consumers need to spend walking, running or cycling to burn the calories in the scanned product.
If the products are available in different quantities or if the consumer only wants to consume a certain amount of a product, the computer can help him/her to set the amount of product he/she wants to know: the amount of salt, the amount of sugar and the calories of the selected amount.
- Scan the QR code on the energy label of household appliances and electronic devices to find out information such as:
- Energy consumption calculator – allows consumers to find out how much energy a particular electronics and appliances product consumes over a period. This facility is useful in the context of purchasing reliable and sustainable products in terms of energy consumption and environmental protection.
- Energy class;
- Producer;
- General information type technical characteristics;
- Recycle;
- The possibility to submit a complaint directly from the application about the scanned product when certain irregularities are detected, for example: the energy label on the product does not correspond to the label displayed in the
The category of household appliances and electrical devices whose QR codes can be scanned with the free InfoCons App include:
- Fridges;
- Dishwashers;
- Washing machines;
- Dryers;
- Televisions and computer
General Information button – Once clicked, the consumer receives information such as technical characteristics depending on the home appliance or electronic product scanned, such as: volume, date on the market, warranty, dimensions, etc.
Manufacturer button – Provides information on the manufacturer’s identifying information: name, CUI, organization verification status, contact, address, phone, email address.
Operating Cost Calculator button – The calculator integrated in this section helps the consumer to estimate energy costs based on their energy cost. Once the cost has been entered, the application automatically displays the amount to be paid in different currencies.
Energy Label button – The consumer can view the energy label to compare it with the label displayed on the product.
Recycle button – Provides consumers with useful information on the importance of recycling, separate collection, recyclable waste, etc.
The ability to receive “ rewards” by performing daily and/or unique actions, available in the My Account section :
– 10 points daily for adding 1 product to the InfoCons database. Points do not accumulate if you add more than 1 product in one day. You can do this when, after scanning the barcode of a food product, you receive the message – Attention – This product could not be identified ! . It is mandatory to upload the product name and at least one photograph of it.
– 10 points that you can earn only once when you complete the information in the “ My Choice” section. You can customize the app according to your consumer preferences: maximum number and type of additives, maximum quantity of salt, maximum quantity of sugar, type of allergens, maximum quantity of calories, minimum InfoScore, minimum Pro InfoScore, minimum Eco InfoScore.;
-5 points daily for scanning a minimum of 5 barcodes of food products and identifying them in the InfoCons database.
– 2 points daily for scanning a minimum of 1 QR code from the energy efficiency label of electronic and electrical products from the following categories: refrigerators, dishwashers, washing machines, dryers, televisions, and computer monitors.
– 1 point daily for accessing the Alerts
The “Menu” button represented by the three superimposed dashes – Once open, the menu allows the consumer to:
- to return to the Home Page;
- set their consumption preferences via the “My Choice” option,
- access the list of saved products;
- access the scan history button;
- create an account
My Choice button – By clicking this button, consumers can pre-set their consumer preferences:
- maximum number of food additives “E’s”, but also the E’s they don’t want in the products they eat;
- the maximum amount of salt;
- the maximum amount of sugar;
- type of allergens;
- the maximum amount of calories;
After adding this information, the InfoCons application signals to the consumer whether or not the scanned product is in line with their pre-defined preferences.
Change language button – This button allows you to choose the language in which the InfoCons information will be rendered. Once this button is clicked and the language is changed, the application will display all buttons and sections in the selected language.
InfoCons app uses Blockchain technology
The InfoCons app uses blockchain technology to store media content related to products in the database. We’re talking here about the images and videos that the InfoCons team has collected for each product.
The decentralised storage solution chosen by InfoCons is Storj, a company whose mission is to provide storage for a decentralised Internet.
The idea behind Storj is for everyone with unused resources to participate in the world’s largest storage network. Basically, any company or person can contribute their unused space to the Storj blockchain. Storj further uses this space to store small parts of files uploaded by users. Thus, a file in Storj is stored in several pieces that are merged when it is consumed by a client (the InfoCons application in this case). Thus, the information is delivered very quickly and securely.