EU Safety Gate: The EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products

Definition

Safety Gate is the rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products and is managed by the European Commission to facilitate a quick circulation of information about measures taken against such products in the EU.

This factsheet focuses on how a business can search for information on the measures reported in the system to better understand mistakes made and help manufacturers to avoid the presence of these risks appearing in their products.

How Safety Gate works

Where measures are taken against dangerous products placed on the EU market, these measures need to be notified in Safety Gate by the national market surveillance authorities. This ensures that the authorities in the other EU countries also screen their market and ensure that these products are removed from the market of the entire European Union.

Measures can be based on voluntary measures adopted by the relevant economic operator (manufacturer, importer, distributor, retailer etc) or imposed by the authorities. The measures can be manifold and include withdrawal, destruction, recalls of the products from end users and rejection at the borders.

Commercially sensitive information about the products and the supply chain, test reports and detailed risk descriptions are only shared between the market surveillance authorities participating in the system. A summary of the notified measures is also published on the dedicated webpages .This allows any interested stakeholder and the general public to find information on the unsafe product identified and where relevant, to take account and act on it

How to look up information on Safety Gate

How to search

To search for notifications, go to the Safety Gate search page.

When you search you can employ the following criteria (at least one):

• Free text search
• Dropdown options for the following fields:
  • Notifying country
  • Country of origin
  • Risk type
  • Alert type (serious risk, other risk levels or other types of alerts)
  • User (consumer or professional)
  • Weekly report
  • Year
  • Date range (“Published since” and “Published until”)

Start the search by clicking the “Search” button in the bottom of the page.

Some tips and tricks

• Don’t select too many criteria from the beginning. It is usually better to start with very few criteria and gradually narrow down the search by adding more and more criteria.
• Normally it will be quicker to find what you are looking for, if you go for a list of 10 – 30 alerts that you can flip through.
• If you are looking for one specific alert, search for the specific alert identification number.
• Remember to reset your search (click the Clear all button) if you want to cancel the search and look for something different.

Viewing the results

Search results are displayed individually and include the following information of the unsafe product subject to measures:

• Photos (normally of product, packaging and marking)
• Risk type
• Notifying country
• Alert number
• A short description of the defect and associated risk
• Product category
• Product type
• Product description
• Packaging description
• Brand name
• Type or model name
• Type or number of model
• Batch number
• Indication of whether the product is counterfeit
• Measures adopted
• Date
• Country of origin

Alerts can be downloaded individually or by group and it is also possible to download a list of notifications in Excel- or XML-format, allowing integration of data into databases of any interested party.

Other options – weekly overviews and statistics

The Safety Gate webpages also provide weekly overviews of notifications, as well as annual reports. It also allows for the drawing of personalised statistics by end users.

Subscribe to new alerts

Anybody can subscribe to weekly overviews of alerts and personalise his preferences (e.g. only those related to toys, only those with a specific country of origin, etc. By subscribing, you will automatically receive the alerts validated in the previous week that match the selected personal preferences in an email message, sent every Friday.

To sign up for a subscription go to this webpage.

Further guidance

• General information about the Safety Gate system and links to various useful functions can be found on the Safety Gate landing page.
• You can find a video with an overview description of the Rapid Alert System for dangerous products on the European Commission’s YouTube channel.
• An FAQ on the rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products is available on this webpage.
• Guidelines for the management of the European Union Rapid Information System.
• Guidance on how to use the statistical tool is found in the “how to” tab of the Safety Gate System Statistics webpage.

Related topics

• CE marking
• Conformity assessment
• Declaration of conformity
• EU consumer protection
• EU market surveillance
• Product safety checklist
• Recall procedures
• Risk management
• Selling online
• Technical file
• Testing
• Using a third party

You may also visit the SPEAC ACADEMY to learn more about the EU Safety requirements.