Log In Create Card

The Emergence of QR Codes

The term "QR code" continues to trend, despite the technology, which emerged in 1994, not being new.

First Stage: Invention and Industrial Use

QR codes have long been a familiar concept: in the last couple of years, everyone has noticed them, and many even have their own codes. The abbreviation QR stands for "quick response." This technology was developed to replace traditional barcodes, offering a faster and more convenient way to transmit data. Traditional barcodes could encode no more than 20 characters, insufficient for many purposes, especially in Japan. In Japan, in addition to letters and numbers, kanji and kana characters are used, which do not fit into standard barcodes. Before QR codes, in some cases, up to ten different barcodes had to be used for a single product. Engineers at Denso Wave company in the early '90s decided to change this situation, considering the amount of information that could be encoded, ease of use, and scanning speed.

Introduced in 1994, QR codes differed from previous barcodes in the following ways:

  • They can contain significantly more data: up to 7089 numbers, 4096 characters or symbols, or 1817 kanji characters.
  • QR codes are easier to create and print, taking up less space.
  • They are easier to scan from any distance and at any angle.
  • QR codes are easier to protect against counterfeiting, reducing scanning errors.

QR codes quickly found use in the automotive industry, food industry, and pharmaceuticals, then spread across almost all sectors of industry. This was due not only to their convenience but also to consumers' desire to learn more about the products they were buying.

An interesting fact: despite having a specific technology owner, the creators of QR codes waived their copyright, allowing anyone to use the technology for free. In the '90s, no one could have imagined that QR codes would be used for payments, as they are today.

Until the 2000s, QR codes were not popular among the general public because specialized scanners were only available to companies. However, the situation began to change in 2002 with the emergence of the first mobile phones with QR scanners, making the technology accessible to a wide audience.

Second Stage: Consumer Use of QR Codes

Outside Japan, QR codes were first actively used in South Korea and China, where the spread of smartphones made scanning QR codes a common action. In China, for example, QR codes are used for authorization, contact exchange, Wi-Fi access, and most importantly, for payments through the WeChat Pay system. QR codes have also become a popular tool in advertising and marketing, used for product authentication and loyalty programs.

The use of QR codes has significantly increased with the development of e-commerce and online payments, serving as an alternative to contactless payments via NFC. They have become an integral part of modern life, used in receipts, tickets, and for paying for services.

However, it is important to be aware of fraudsters who can use QR codes for phishing or distributing viruses. A new surge in the popularity of QR codes began with the COVID-19 pandemic, when they were used for contact tracing and replacing paper documents with digital ones, simplifying many processes and making them safer. They are increasingly seen in electronic business cards, which have truly become a fashionable trend in recent years.