Geolocation data are the coordinates that indicate where a raw material was actually produced: the plot of land, the plantation or the forest plot. The Regulation requires latitude and longitude per plot, not an address or place name. For small plots, a single coordinate point is sufficient; above a certain area, the full perimeter of the plot must be provided, known as a polygon.
The distinction between a point and a polygon is the detail that raises most questions in practice. The threshold is four hectares: plots below that may be provided with a single point, plots above that require the perimeter with all corner points. Anyone purchasing cocoa or coffee from hundreds of small growers deals mainly with points; anyone sourcing timber or soya from larger plantations more often encounters polygons.
Why this is more than a technical detail
The reason this distinction receives so much attention is that it directly determines what must be requested from your supplier. A grower providing only an address or village name does not supply geolocation data within the meaning of the Regulation. A supplier providing coordinates in the wrong format, or data from manual measurement without GPS equipment, supplies data that cannot be validated later. This affects not only accuracy but also whether the plot is correctly matched to the right country and risk classification. How that classification works exactly is detailed in the knowledge base where it has been worked out for each situation.
What you concretely need per plot
Per plot, this concerns the coordinates themselves, the area, and the time when the product from that plot was produced or harvested. For multiple small plots belonging to the same supplier, each plot does not need to be listed separately if the data are bundled and traceable. This makes it manageable for a coffee roaster working with a cooperative, but it does not change the requirement that each plot must separately be traceable to a coordinate.
How these data usually go wrong
In practice, geodata often arrive in a form that cannot be directly used: a screenshot of a map, coordinates in degrees-minutes-seconds where decimal degrees are required, or a polygon that does not close because a corner point is missing. These are not legal problems but practical ones, and they can usually be resolved in one conversation with the supplier if you know in advance which format is needed. At eudri.com, we structure and validate the coordinates supplied before they enter a file, so that a polygon that does not close or a point that falls outside the stated country is flagged before it becomes a problem when filing. How that process is organised in detail, you can read about on the page showing where the information comes from.
What happens to the data after that
Once the geolocation data are recorded, they form part of the plot, the supplier and the country of origin in one file. That file is the basis for the due diligence declaration or simplified declaration that you submit. Because this concerns origin data from plots and not personal data of employees, different rules apply than with, for example, customer data, but careful storage remains necessary; how we handle this is set out on the page on how data are stored with us. The legal assessment of whether a plot is classified as high-risk always remains with the market participant itself; we provide the structured foundation for that, not a judgment about whether a product is deforestation-free.
Do you want to find out first which role and which obligation applies to your situation before you start collecting location data? With the free role check, you'll see in just a few questions where you stand and from which date it will apply to you.