Cyclical Enforcement Project 2019-2020: USB Chargers

Fiscal Year 2019-2020

Summary

The Consumer Product Safety Program (CPSP) administers and enforces the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA) and its regulations.

The purpose of this project was to sample USB chargers that plug into an electrical outlet and test them to the performance criteria of a consensus-based safety standard in order to verify compliance to the CCPSA. Health Canada has determined that certain USB chargers that do not conform to the applicable criteria set out in CAN/CSA-C22.2 NO. 60950-1-07 (R2016) - Information Technology Equipment - Safety - Part 1: General Requirements (Bi-National standard, with UL 60950-1), or the equivalent, pose a danger to human health or safety. The CCPSA paragraph 7(a) prohibits any person from manufacturing, importing, advertising or a selling a consumer product that is a danger to human health or safety. In addition, CCPSA paragraph 8(a) states that no person shall advertise or sell a consumer product that they know is a danger to human health or safety.

For this project, compliance of select USB chargers was determined through a sampling and testing process by which Health Canada inspectors visited establishments and sampled relevant products. Compliance to the specific requirement under the CSA standard was then verified through testing at the Product Safety Laboratory.

All electrical products that plug into an electrical outlet, including USB chargers, are already required to be certified to the applicable Canadian national safety standard to comply with provincial and territorial legislation. That certification must be from an accredited certification body and the certified product must carry the recognized certification mark of that certification body. Paragraph 9 (b) of the CCPSA prohibits the packaging or labelling of a consumer product in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive regarding its certification related to its safety or its compliance with a safety standard or the regulations. Section 10 of the CCPSA prohibits the advertising or sale of a consumer product that is known to be advertised, packaged or labelled in a manner referred to in section 9. Verifying industry compliance to these applicable requirements of the CCPSA was another objective for this project. This was accomplished by verifying product certifications with the listed certification body. For those products identified by the certification body as having unauthorized certification, the CPSP Inspector determined non-compliance due to misleading claims as provided under paragraph 9 (b) and section 10 of the CCPSA.

Over the course of the 2019-2020 fiscal year, 56 USB chargers were sampled for electrical strength testing. There were 10 products that were voluntarily recalled as a result of failing to meet the electric strength performance requirement of the CSA standard. No other tests from the CSA standard, required for the certification of USB chargers, were carried out. Of the 56 products sampled, 44 had a recognized certification mark. Identification by the certification bodies of products having unauthorized certifications, and determination by inspectors of their non-compliance due to the misleading claims prohibitions of the CCPSA, resulted in 14 stop sales. Of these, there were 8 products for which the establishment corrected the certification issue and were able to continue sale for future product manufacturing. There were 3 products (4 total samples, 2 were the same product) that were identified to have unauthorized certification from the certification body, however non-compliance due to the misleading claims prohibitions of the CCPSA was not determined based on information provided by the establishment. These products were referred to the certification body. Of the 12 products that did not have a recognized certification mark, 4 failed to meet the electric strength performance requirement of the CSA standard and were included in the recall. The 8 products that met the electric strength performance requirement of the CSA standard but did not have a recognized certification mark were referred to electrical safety authorities responsible for enforcing provincial and territorial legislation. The overall product non-compliance rate for this project was 43%. There were 20 instances where no corrective action was required.

Results

Readers should consult the Consumer Product Update, if applicable, for details of the products subject to a voluntary recall.

* Determined to be the same product

Disclaimer: A systematic bias is applied during inspection and sampling. Products are not randomly selected but are chosen because they are deemed by the inspector to be more likely to not meet health and safety requirements due to characteristics that are observed. Due to this biased nature of sampling and the fact that sample sizes within compliance verification projects are very small, the findings of these projects are not intended to reflect overall market compliance unless otherwise stated. These summary reports relate only to the products actually assessed and the specific criteria indicated. Testing by Health Canada does not represent approval or endorsement of the products.

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