Juul’s becoming more and more popular among young people in the United States, which has aroused widespread concern and discussion in American society. Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb called it an “epidemic” and imposed further restrictions on the sale of electronic cigarette products. Some members of Parliament jointly called for a total ban on the sale of electronic cigarettes such as Jull.
To meet the policy requirements, Juul has made his own efforts not only to improve his own online purchasing system from all offline retail stores, off-shelves non-cigarettes and non-menthol, to ensure that online buyers are over 21 years old, but also to withdraw from the official marketing accounts of Facebook and Instagram. Moreover, Juul Labs has invested heavily in research to build technology-based solutions to prevent teenagers from using the product. “Bluetooth products are being developed, which will make Juul devices as smart as the iPhone or Android devices, which will definitely help to prohibit people under 21 from using Juuls,” said James Monsees, co-founder and CEO of Juul.
Juul Lab has invested heavily in the development of tracking technology recently, which aims to use data to accurately detect how Juul devices eventually fall into the hands of minors.
It is reported that all Juul’s devices will have built-in Track & Trace technology. When parents, teachers and law enforcement officers confiscate electronic cigarettes from adults, they go to the Juul Report website and enter a serial number. Whenever a device is entered into the tracking system, Juul will conduct an investigation to find out how the minor bought the device. Juul will then take the next step, such as discussing the issue with the store manager. It may also strengthen its secret purchasing program around a store or distributor so that young people can identify the root cause of the problem. In fact, in some cases, this may be a retail store, deliberately sold to minors. In other cases, this may be an example of social resources that adults over 21 buy and sell to minors. It should be noted that Track & Trace only tracks the device itself, and does not use the customer’s personal data.
At present, Juul has not widely publicized Track & Trace (its secret “pilot” location), but it uses Houston as a pilot site for banner ads targeting the elderly (parents, teachers, etc.) to its official site. It is noteworthy that the advertising campaign has been banned from broadcasting in or around schools in the hope of keeping secret to the young people who illegally use Juul. The company wants Track & Trace to actually test the tracking mechanism before expanding its activities. That is to say, the reporting portal is not limited to Houston residents – anyone who confiscates Juul can report through the portal and trigger investigations.
“It is noteworthy that this pilot project provides us with an opportunity to understand how technology works and to optimize it.” “It’s not just at the retailer level. This is a process that runs through the entire supply chain to track the device and find out if everyone who should scan it. And we create software that tracks serial numbers from supply chains to retail stores. When someone enters a serial number, we check to see if we have all the data it needs to track it, “said Ashley Gould, CEO of Juul.
According to Juul, every device in production will be traceable in the next few weeks. In other words, Juul’s older vapes may not be fully traceable in the program, but the recently purchased vapes should be compatible with the software tracking system.
