Planned review of General Product Safety Directive

Very recently, the European Commission has announced a public consultation about a possible review of the General Product Safety Directive (GPSD).  The feedback period ends on the 1 September 2020 

GPSD provides the EU legal framework for the safety of non-food consumer products to the extent that there are no specific provisions with the same safety objective in other EU legislation, such as EU harmonised legislation for specific products.  The Directive is, however, nearly 20 years old and as such does not reflect any more the most recent developments in products and markets. 

For example, the GPSD does not explicitly address the fact that new technologies, in particular Artificial Intelligence (AI), can impact product safety as well.  Moreover, in 2001 when the Directive was passed, the e-commerce was only starting.  All this makes a review of GPSD necessary. 

In the call for comments, the European Commission defined 5 main problems to be tackled during the review: 

1. Product safety challenges linked to new technologies: It is estimated that by 2020 the number of connected devices will reach 500 billion worldwide. These developments pose challenges to the current definition of products (to what extent does a product include software, whether it is sold with the product or downloaded later on).  They also pose challenges related to the notion of placing products on the market (e.g. products can change via software updates). 

1. Product safety challenges in the online sales channels: The increasing market share of online selling (in 2018, 69% of internet users in the EU made online purchases) creates new challenges. Member State authorities do not have sufficiently effective instruments for online market surveillance (e.g. powers to acquire product samples under covert identity). 

1. Insufficient recall effectiveness: The effectiveness of product recalls from consumers is low which means that too many dangerous products still remain in the hand of consumers. 

1. Market surveillance rules are complex and not fully effective: Market surveillance and customs authorities lack appropriate instruments and resources to enforce product safety rules, including tools to impose effective sanctions. 

1. Inconsistent application of product safety rules for food-imitating products: The legal framework for food-imitating products is applied differently from country to country currently 

You can give your feedback on the above issued on the dedicated website of the European Commission: link.