Our product, or one like it, is on Safety Gate

Safety Gate is the system through which national authorities tell each other, and the public, about dangerous products. Under the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988, Member States notify through the Safety Gate Rapid Alert System the corrective measures taken by their authorities or by economic operators against products presenting a serious risk, without delay and within four working days of the measure (Article 26(1) and (4)). The Commission checks each notification and passes it on; the other Member States follow up on their own markets and notify what they do about the same product (Article 26(5) and (7)).^[1]

The public side is the Safety Gate Portal, which gives free and open access to selected information from those notifications and lets consumers report products that might present a risk (Article 34). Each alert describes the kind of product, the risk and the measures taken by the operator or ordered by the authority.^[3]

An alert about your own product means the corrective measure exists already, taken by you or ordered by an authority. From here the regulation asks for cooperation: economic operators cooperate with market surveillance authorities on actions that eliminate or mitigate the risk and, on request, provide a full description of the risk, related complaints and accidents, and of the corrective measures taken (Article 15). Providers of online marketplaces take Safety Gate notifications into account for their voluntary measures to detect and remove offers of dangerous products (Article 22(6)), so an alert can be followed by listings being removed.^[1]

An alert about a similar product from another company has no direct legal effect on you, but it is information in your possession. A manufacturer who, on that basis, has reason to believe a product it placed on the market is dangerous must immediately take corrective measures, inform consumers and notify the authorities of the Member States where the product was made available through the Safety Business Gateway (Article 9(8)); importers and distributors have matching duties (Articles 11(8) and 12(4)). The assessment follows the aspects in Article 6.^[1]

Where an operator does not act on a product presenting a serious risk, the authority ensures that it is withdrawn or recalled or that its being made available is prohibited (Regulation (EU) 2019/1020, Articles 16(5) and 19(1)).^[2]