“This digital whiteboard is so cheap! Perfect for my daughter. I put it in the cart.” This quote – invented for the cause – is reproduced millions of times a day among users “addicted” to the advantages of online platforms which flood the screens with good deals for all tastes and all ages. However, a recent study shows the importance of putting aside the desire to fill the shopping cart with products and analyzing what we buy, especially if they are dolls and products that end up in the hands of babies and minors because they can be very dangerous.
Toy Industries of Europe (TIE), the association representing the largest toy companies in the European Union (EU), has just presented the results of an analysis carried out on 100 toys purchased in Allegro online stores , AliExpress, Amazon Marketplace, Bol, Cdiscount, Fruugo, Light In The Box, Shein, Temu and Wish and the result is alarming: 80% of the products did not comply with EU safety standards or the twenty- seventh safety directive.
“Independent laboratory tests show that these toys pose serious health risks to children, including choking and exposure to toxic chemicals“. The analysis, published on the occasion of International Product Safety Week 2024, returns the debate on the responsibility of online markets regarding the safety of the products offered on their platforms. And even more so when six of They indicate that since TIE, they have signed the EU Product Safety Pledge, a voluntary commitment to end the sale of dangerous products on their platforms.
Toys purchased for research were from unknown or unbranded brands and were sold by third-party sellers through these online retailers. This means that the results do not reflect the safety of all toys available on the platforms since branded toys were excluded from the study.
The full list of dangerous toys identified by TIE emerges as the most concerning example baby teething rings easily breakable, resulting in a risk of drowning, products with poorly protected magnets or batteries likely to cause serious damage, or even death, if swallowed or the famous vase with levels of boron (a chemical linked to reproductive health problems) 13 times the legal limit.
The “dishonest” trader’s escape route
How can these products end up in the hands of children when the EU has the strictest toy safety regime in the world? The answer lies in the legal loophole of online commerce operated by merchants that TIE describes as “dishonest”.
European toy safety standards place direct responsibility on manufacturers, importers and distributors to ensure that toys – or any other products – are manufactured appropriately and comply with the law before being sold. However, These rules do not apply to sellers outside the EU. when the sale is made in an online store, because the “online” market is not considered an economic operator and therefore has no responsibility for the safety of the toys.
There is a need for stronger legal accountability, says Catherine Van Reeth, Director General of TIE: “Dangerous toys from sellers who ignore EU rules will continue to flood the EU unless online marketplaces are more responsible for the safety of toys sold on its platform, while none It is another person in the EU who assumes this responsibility. Unless all players in the value chain do their part, there will always be a legal vacuum. A person responsible for protecting EU children and consumers must be better enforced.
Revising the law in this sense and strengthening customs control becomes necessary, warns the association. However, the volume of orders which arrive mainly from China makes it impossible to parse packages with current resources; Only a small percentage undergoes examination before leaving for the final recipient.
The first step would be to recognize the online market as an economic operator so that it can be legally responsible for the toys whose sale it facilitates if there is no economic operator in the EU who takes this responsibility. “This can be done by amending the current legislation relating to the safety of products and online platforms, or through the ongoing negotiations on the new European regulation on toy safety,” they point out from TIE.
In the case of customs, the proposed solution is to implement the concept of “reputed importer” to ensure that there is always someone in the EU responsible for imports from third countries: “This will also ensure an effective customs approach in each Member State, which really deters offenders, believes an external border of the EU and enables smooth exchange of data between Member States. » Furthermore, they recall that while the digital product passport offers some hope, it only verifies the documentation, not the safety of the products, which is why they demand that the regulations extend the responsibilities that it is still necessary.
For online platforms, the Digital Services Act (DSA) introduces important elements, particularly in relation to their responsibility to verify all information provided under the ‘trader traceability’ provisions before authorizing the trader to access their services (and to suspend merchants for providing inaccurate or incomplete information). . In this sense, Van Reeth emphasizes that “if thousands of European toy manufacturers, 99% of which are SMEs, can take responsibility for the safety of their products, online marketplaces should also do so.”
