Product safety database screening
product-safety-database-checksDomain: marketplace-platformType: processDescription
Product-safety database screening is the operational layer that runs against the public recall and banned-product registers maintained by safety regulators across the major markets. In the EU, the Safety Gate (formerly RAPEX) publishes the rapid-alert notifications submitted by member states for non-food consumer products presenting a serious risk; in the US, the CPSC's recall database does similar work; the UK has its own post-Brexit Product Safety Database; Health Canada, the ACCC in Australia, and Japan's METI carry equivalent registers. Marketplace operators sit in the middle of the obligation: the EU's General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR, in force since December 2024) makes platforms screen new and existing listings against the Safety Gate and remove or restrict listings that match a recalled product, and the obligation extends to existing listings when a new alert is published rather than only to new listings going forward. The operational shape: ingest the registers on a regular cadence, match against the platform's listing inventory by product identifier or by description-similarity for unidentified listings, surface matches for review, and document the action taken for each match. The piece that consistently goes wrong is the matching layer; identifier-based matching catches the easy cases, but a meaningful fraction of recalled products carry mis-stated identifiers, and the description-similarity layer is where the operator earns the defensibility argument.
Applicability
Applies when: business model role is intermediary or mixed AND markets include EU or UK.
Required by (3 regulations)
- DSA
Articles 30-32 read with EU Safety Gate.
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 of the European Parliament and of the Council (Digital Services Act)
- EU GPSR
Article 22(1) and 22(4) — Safety Gate single point of contact registration; 2-working-day delisting clock for serious-risk notifications; 24/7 operational coverage of the alerting layer.
Regulation (EU) 2023/988
- US Product Liability
Restatement §402A + Bolger v Amazon (CA) + NY Marketplace Liability Act — product-safety verification at platform-fulfillment intake.
Restatement §402A + Bolger v Amazon (CA) + NY Marketplace Liability Act
Fulfilled by (2)
- In-house build · medium effort
- descartes · partial · medium effort · $$
ClearLaunch does not accept payment from vendors. Methodology.
Evidence formats
- screening pipeline configuration
- removal log
- cross-listing reconciliation