European Fee releases 2020 Product Security Evaluation – Client Safety

This week, the European Fee printed its annual report on Security Gate, the system it operates to trace and report on product issues of safety within the EU. This yr’s report exhibits that the variety of reviews of doubtless harmful merchandise continues to extend yr on yr.

The details to recollect are:

• In 2020, EU nationwide authorities submitted 2,253 hazardous product alerts and 5,377 follow-up notices, with a big enhance in November and December.

• 26% of alerts have been for merchandise offered on-line, up from 16% in 2019. Whereas this represents the broader change in procuring habits in Europe because of the pandemic, it’s acknowledged as posing further challenges for monitoring product security and traceability.

• As in earlier years, toys are essentially the most notified product class, accounting for 27% of notifications (down barely from 29% in 2019). We all know that regulators are significantly concerned about toys and kids’s merchandise, given the vulnerability of their typical customers and the excessive degree of safety anticipated.

• Unsurprisingly, 2020 noticed a specific deal with PPE and different Covid-related merchandise not performing as they need to (together with 161 reviews regarding masks), accounting for 9% of whole reviews.

• A rising variety of on-line marketplaces are committing, through the voluntary “Product Security Pledge” of the European Fee, to verify that the merchandise listed on Security Gate should not on the market on their platforms, and to behave in each working days within the occasion of a withdrawal request from a certified nationwide.

• The European Fee has revamped the Security Gate web site, to make it simpler to find alerts, and extra user-friendly to make sure customers can entry up-to-date data on product issues of safety.

Lastly, the European Fee has launched its 2021 Product Security Award, with open functions. There are two classes: (i) defending the protection of weak shopper teams and (ii) combining security and new applied sciences. If your organization (or somebody you recognize) goes the additional mile in these areas, apply right hereearlier than April 30, 2021.

Yow will discover the annual Security Gate report right here, and the up to date Security Gate web site right here.

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