De Beers has announced a significant shift in how it provides information about its diamonds, particularly those over 1.25 carats. Traditionally, the company has marketed its diamonds as "aggregated"—sourced from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, and Canada—without specifying the exact country of origin. Now, through its Tracr diamond tracking program, De Beers will disclose the country of origin for each diamond over a certain size.
The stones will be tracked using digital tags, which will allow the diamonds to be scanned both before and after aggregation. The Tracr platform will then match and distribute this information to retailers, laboratories, and manufacturers, enabling the diamonds to be marketed with precise origin details. This new level of traceability offers retailers and brands the opportunity to emphasize origin-specific storytelling, which can be used for marketing or assurance purposes.
Tracr uses optical scanning to create a silhouette of each rough diamond, making it difficult to swap or misidentify stones. Currently, this program is limited to diamonds that yield polished stones of 1.25 carats or more, but it will soon expand to include smaller stones that yield polished diamonds of 0.5 carats or larger.
De Beers has also made Tracr available to other diamond producers and non-sightholders, aiming to extend traceability throughout the industry. Although De Beers still controls Tracr, there are plans to reduce its ownership and eventually make the platform fully independent.