Common Product Safety Issues

The EU has established the Safety Gate/RAPEX system (EU Rapid Alert System for non-food consumer products) for the identification of dangerous consumer products on the market. It ensures that information about dangerous products identified by the Member States is quickly circulated to prevent or restrict the selling of these products on the market.

The Safety Gate/RAPEX information concerning products of Chinese origin is also made available to China to directly follow up on notifications through the so-called RAPEX-China.

The Safety Gate statistics lists dangerous products with risks caused by mechanical, chemical and electrical issues. The most frequent serious risks are choking and strangulation (for children), poisoning, electric shocks and burning, 

This module will provide you with an overview of common product safety issues in the EU and the role the Safety Gate has in helping to identify unsafe products.

At the end of this module, you will be able to understand the:

• Most frequent serious product safety issues in the EU identified by the Safety Gate
• The role of market surveillance authorities and other institutions in the identification of dangerous products and follow-up measures by the authorities in the EU and China.
• Benefits to businesses of using the Safety Gate to understand common product safety issues in order to avoid these issues
• Responsibilities of the different businesses in the supply chain in relation to making sure products sold in the EU are safe
• Significant consequences that selling unsafe products can have on businesses