Product Safety

The Consumer Protection Office of the Velocity Interoperability Network issues the general product safety rules that apply to goods supplied within the Velocity Interoperability Network. The eight rules below took effect on 6 September 2026. They apply to every product, new or second-hand, and to every person who supplies one: the maker, the importer into the Network, the wholesaler and the shop.

The rules are written to be understood without legal advice. A trader who follows them will not usually need to write to the Office at all. A trader who is unsure whether a product meets them should write before supplying it rather than afterwards.

The eight general rules.

Rule 1. Supply only safe products

No person may supply a product that presents a risk to health or safety in normal or reasonably foreseeable use. A product is judged by its construction, its materials, its assembly instructions, the effect of it on other products with which it will obviously be used, and the persons at risk from it, including children and older people.

Rule 2. Give the safety information with the product

Warnings, instructions for safe assembly and use, age markings and the limits of safe use must accompany the product in plain language. Information that is available only on request, or that is given after the sale, does not satisfy this rule.

Rule 3. Make every product traceable

Each product must carry a batch, lot or model marking sufficient to identify it, together with the name of the trader responsible for placing it on the market. Where the product is too small to be marked, the marking must appear on its packaging.

Rule 4. Meet the supplementary standard that applies

Four classes of product carry additional requirements: electrical goods, products intended for children, materials intended to come into contact with food, and personal protective equipment. The requirements are set out in the table below.

Rule 5. Notify the Office of an unsafe product

A trader who learns that a product it has supplied is unsafe must notify the Office within two working days, giving the product, the batch or model, the hazard, the quantity supplied and the countermeasures already taken. Notification is required even where the trader intends to act without being directed to.

Rule 6. Keep records of supply for six years

Records must show what was supplied, in what quantity, to whom and on what date, together with the identity of the person from whom the trader obtained the product. Records must be produced to the Office within five working days of a written request.

Rule 7. Cooperate with an assessment

Where the Office is assessing a product, the trader must supply samples, test reports and technical documentation, and must not supply further units of the product while a stop has been directed.

Rule 8. Act on a direction without delay

A direction to withdraw a product or to recall it takes effect on the day it is given. The trader must stop supply immediately, inform the customers it can identify within the period fixed by the class of the recall, and report to the Office at the interval fixed by that class until the recall is closed.

Supplementary standards. Four classes of product carry requirements beyond the general rules, because the harm they can do is greater or falls on people less able to judge the risk. The evidence column states what the trader must hold before the product is first supplied.

A test report must be issued by a laboratory competent to test against the standard, must name the product and the batch or model it covers, and must be produced to the Office within five working days of a written request. The Office does not approve products in advance and does not issue certificates; a trader that claims otherwise of its goods is misdescribing them.

How the Office assesses a product. Every assessment follows the same five steps, whether it begins with a complaint, a notification or an inspection.

1. 1

   Step 1: The Office opens an assessment

   An assessment is opened on a complaint from a consumer, a notification from a trader, an inspection of records, or a finding by another authority of the Network. The trader responsible is told in writing on the day the assessment opens.

2. 2

   Step 2: Records and documentation are examined

   The Office asks for the records of supply, the technical documentation and any test report already held. These must be produced within five working days.

3. 3

   Step 3: The product is tested where a hazard is suspected

   Where the documents do not settle the question, the Office arranges testing against the standard that applies. Testing is at the trader's expense where a hazard is reasonably suspected and at the Office's expense where it is not.

4. 4

   Step 4: A finding is made and given in writing

   The Office finds the product safe, unsafe, or non-compliant without immediate risk. The finding is given to the trader in writing with reasons, and may be reconsidered on written request within fourteen days.

5. 5

   Step 5: Corrective action follows the finding

   An unsafe product is withdrawn from sale and, where units are already in consumers' hands, recalled and entered on the register. A product non-compliant without immediate risk is corrected within a period fixed by the Office.

Where an assessment ends in a recall, the product is entered on the recall register and the recall is announced in the Newsroom. The duties of traders under the rules, including how to notify an unsafe product, are set out on the Guidance for Traders page; what a buyer is entitled to when a product turns out to be unsafe is set out under Consumer Rights.

To report a product you believe is unsafe, write to contact@consumer.gov.vin with the product, the batch or model marking, where it was bought and what happened. Reports from consumers are read by the safety branch on the working day they arrive.