Tech product safety

Smart city technology is rapidly changing the consumer experience, for the better. Tedious chores in the home, car and elsewhere are being automated, taking the stress and bother away from the consumer who is freed up to do what they enjoy.

Whilst this is all positive news, businesses and authorities caught up in the drive towards smart city must keep their eyes open to the fact that every shift of risk and responsibility away from the consumer places greater burden on the manufacturers, importers and suppliers of products, and the authorities which set down the rules. The industry is still inadequately prepared for this large-scale risk transfer: the question of how to handle it has been slowing down automation in automotive and other sectors in the past few years, and governments have been struggling to get the law into a shape to deal with the challenges.

Urgent action is needed now, by authorities, manufacturers and other businesses operating across sectors and product lines, to address critical issues including: Building in product risk resilience at the design stage to properly understand and mitigate novel risks associated with technology: Failure mode/functional safety analysis needs to be overhauled to ensure that designers can identify and iron out potential safety or functionality issues spawning from novel, complex products which interact with the world around them in vastly more complex ways than in the past.

• Ensuring that end-users and operators faced with novel and unfamiliar product behaviors are provided with adequate warnings and instructions.
• Reassessing contractual frameworks to ensure clear allocation of liability risk and data handling and product safety response.
• Ensuring that manufacturers of connected products properly harness the rich new sources of data on field performance to monitor product in the market and step in when potential safety issues are identified.
• Making sure that capacities for over-the air updates and monitoring of products are actively considered, alongside traditional recall-type measures, when assessing appropriate corrective measures in response to safety concerns.