Technical consumer protection; market surveillance Product safety

The mission of the trade inspectorate at the governments is to ensure safe products in the area of technical consumer protection.

Description

Product safety

This includes, in particular, toys, personal protective equipment, home and leisure equipment, sports equipment, machinery, gas appliances and much more.

Manufacturers and distributors may only place safe technical products on the market. They are responsible for ensuring that their products are designed in such a way that users and third parties are protected from hazards to life and health. This is a significant contribution to the preventive protection of consumers, employees and patients. The safety standard is based on the EU directives and the European standards that govern the free movement of goods in the internal market.

Cross-border cooperation

Since 1993, with the introduction of the European Single Market, the monitoring activities of the labor inspectorates at the governments have been cross-border. Information on safety defects in products such as household appliances, sports equipment and toys is exchanged throughout the EU.

To ensure that only safe products that meet high European standards are placed on the market (i.e. enter the trade), the Bavarian Trade Inspectorate performs the following tasks in particular.

The trade supervisory authority

  • advises manufacturers and importers on issues relating to CE marking of technical products (declaration that the requirements of the relevant EU directives regarding the quality of the product are met), European safety standards and the conformity assessment procedure,
  • inspects technical products at trade fairs and exhibitions and in the retail trade by means of targeted spot checks,
  • inspects technical products on a case-by-case basis at the manufacturer's, dealer's or importer's premises,
  • participates as a consumer protection authority in the Europe-wide EU rapid information system and
  • withdraws unsafe products from circulation.

If you have questions about the quality requirements of technical products, or if you suspect that a product does not meet the prescribed safety-related quality requirements, you can contact the industrial inspectorate directly at the government of your administrative district. As an instrument for the exchange of information on unsafe products and product risks, the Internet-based Information and Communication System for Europe-wide Market Surveillance of Technical Products (ICSMS) (see "Online procedure") is available to consumers and authorities.

Procedure

Market surveillance in Bavaria is carried out by the trade supervisory offices at the governments. Each trade supervisory office has special responsibilities for the whole of Bavaria. You can find an overview of the relevant responsibilities under "Related links".

Online procedures

  • Informations- und Kommunikationssystem zur europaweiten Marktüberwachung von technischen Produkten (ICSMS)

    In the "Search", product information can be searched for using various criteria. After a search query has been performed, the hits are displayed in a hit list.

  • Schnellwarnsystem der Europäischen Union

    The rapid alert system ("Safety Gate") enables information on measures to protect against dangerous non-food products to be rapidly transmitted to the national authorities responsible for product safety. With the help of the rapid alert system, alerts from national authorities are forwarded on a daily basis. Each alert contains information on the product classified as dangerous, a description of the risks and the measures taken by economic operators or ordered by the authorities.

Status: 05.12.2022

Responsible for editing: Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Umwelt und Verbraucherschutz

Contains machine translated content. Show the original content

  • Online transactions, Bavaria-wide
  • Online transactions, locally limited
  • Prefillable Form, Bavaria-wide
  • Legal bases, Bavaria-wide
  • Legal bases, locally limited
  • Fees, Bavaria-wide
  • Fees, locally limited
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