FAQs

What is Supply Trace?

Supply Trace is an accessible, open platform that exposes potential risks in global supply chains. In its pilot phase, it focuses on the apparel sector and links between forced labor in the Uyghur Region of China and shipments to the US.

Where does the data in Supply Trace come from?

Supply Trace is populated with customs records, such as shipping and bill of lading data, and other publicly available supply chain information. Machine learning automates the process of tracing connections between multiple supply chain tiers, as goods flow through global supply chains. Additional intelligence, derived from desk-based research, is layered over the base supply chain data. In the pilot phase, this research has been led by a team of Uyghur nationals, with deep subject matter expertise relating to issues of forced labor in the Uyghur Region of China. In the future, Supply Trace will progressively expand to other industries, affected regions and categories of risk.

How is the data in Supply Trace processed?

You can read about this in Our Methodology.

How recent is the data in Supply Trace?

Supply Trace contains over 10 years of historical supply chain data. You can filter the timeline of your searches under the “Years” section of the Supplier or Customer pages.

Do I have to pay to use Supply Trace?

Supply Trace is an open access platform. There is no paywall and it is available for anyone to search who has an interest in better understanding supply chain conditions, including companies, government, civil society and more.

What is the governance structure of Supply Trace?

Supply Trace is a research project incubated at Northeastern University. In the pilot phase, it combines the forced labor expertise of Northeastern and Sheffield Hallam Universities, with programming and computational resources provided by Northeastern. It receives support from a multi-stakeholder Advisory Board, whose expertise spans trade and compliance, human rights law, supply chain academia and technology.

I have a large vendor list that I would like to screen at scale – can I do that?

This functionality is not currently available on Supply Trace, but is a priority development for the team. Keep checking back for updates, or submit your interest in this feature via this form.

What should I do if I have a query about a specific piece of data in Supply Trace?

You can contact us with queries about the data in Supply Trace by filling out this short form. Please include as much detail as possible about your data query. A relevant team member will endeavour to respond to you as quickly as possible.

My question isn’t answered here – what should I do?

You can reach out to the Supply Trace team by filling out this short form. A relevant team member will endeavour to respond to you as quickly as possible.