General principle – upon purpose-oriented use all products and services shall be safe to the health of the consumer as well as to the surrounding environment and property.

Product

Safety and conformity of products is regulated by the Product Conformity Act, valid since 01.01.2011 in place of the former Product and Service Safety Act.

Product Conformity Act is a generic act, which objective is to ensure product safety and conformity and the free movement of goods in the European Economic Area. The act applies to the products and their market surveillance that have not been regulated by another act (special acts, see list below). If requirements for a product have been established in another act, this act shall apply only to the extent of the requirements not regulated by another act. Product within the meaning of this act is „a substance, preparation or good produced through a manufacturing process other than food, feed, living plants and animals, products of human origin and products of plants and animals relating directly to their future reproduction.“ The definition has been provided in the Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 339/93 (OJ L 218, 13.8.2008, pp. 30–47).

Only safe products can be placed on the market or put into service.

Product safety shall be ensured by the producer of the product, who is manufacturer of the product, but also:

• representative of the manufacturer, if the manufacturer is not located in the Community
• importer of the product, if the manufacturer has no representative in the Community

Also the distributors shall make all efforts to ensure fulfilment of product safety requirements, mainly by not supplying the products, for which they know or should have guessed on the basis of the information in their possession that these products are non-conforming.

Distributors shall not make any products available on the market:

• that they know, on the basis of the information in their possession and as professionals, are not safe;
• that they know, on the basis of the information in their possession and as professionals, do not comply with the requirements, or
• whose non-conformity with requirements should have been foreseen.

In determining whether a product is safe, the following circumstances shall be taken into account:
1) the characteristics of the product, including its composition, packaging, instructions for assembly and, where applicable, instructions for installation and maintenance;
2) the effect on other products, where it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be used with other products;
3) the presentation of the product, the labelling, warnings, instructions for use and disposal, and any other information regarding the product;
4) the potential risk upon use by certain categories of consumers, in particular children and the elderly.

A product is considered to be safe if the product, under normal conditions of use including duration and upon adherence to being put into service, installation and maintenance requirements, does not present any risk to the safety or health of persons or jeopardise the surrounding environment.

In other words, no supplied product designed for consumers or approved for use by the consumers may cause any health risks or may cause only minimum risk permissible in regular or reasonably expected conditions for use of the product.

A consumer shall have sufficient amount of information (user manual, information sheets etc) enabling him/her to use the product for intended purpose and safely, whereby this information shall be taken into account upon use. Thus – also awareness of the consumer is essential.

NB! It is important to use the product only for the purpose and in the way specified by the manufacturer. A product may be dangerous, if used for non-intended or wrong purpose or incorrectly.

However, a product shall be safe or minimally dangerous in reasonably expected conditions. Some relevant explanatory examples:
A bicycle: -  due to a normal danger of falling from the bicycle, the bicycle shall be mechanically safe (e.g. with sufficiently well-functioning brakes) and the cyclist shall wear a helmet. 

Cosmetic products:

• a lipstick is intended for colouring of lips, but as it can be expected that certain amount of it would be swallowed, it shall be safe also in case of ingestion
• mascara is intended for colouring of eyelash, but it can also get into the eyes – therefore it shall be safe also in case of contact with the eyes.

Service

Alike product, also the service provided to the consumer shall be safe.

The requirements set to a service are provided in the  Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on services in the internal market (OJ L 376, 27.12.2006, pp 36-68), transferred into Estonian legal space with the European Union Services Directive Implementation Act enacted on 28.12.2009. The mentioned act will be valid until 31.12.2013. From 01.01.2014 the General Part of the Economic Activities Code Act will take force, also referring to the services directive.

Pursuant to the directive a „service“ is any self-employed economic activity, normally provided for remuneration. Service provider shall be responsible for safety and quality of his/her activities and shall comply with the requirements set to the provider of the specific service (education, qualification, any relevant licence etc) and to the service (if any relevant requirements are established with a legal act).

Product and service safety is regulated with several legal acts.