CPSC Seeks Comments, Sets Hearing on ‘Potential Safety Issues’ of IoT Products

The Consumer Product Safety Commission seeks comments by June 15 in docket CPSC-2018-0007 on the “potential safety issues and hazards associated with” IoT consumer products, it said Tuesday in a notice in the Federal Register. CPSC also plans a May 16 public hearing at its Bethesda, Maryland, headquarters, the results of which “will be used to inform future Commission risk management work,” it said. Requests to make oral presentations at the hearing are due May 2, it said. The connectivity of IoT products “holds the promise of many benefits for consumers,” but also is “a potential for harm” or hazard “where none existed before” the internet connection was established, it said. It worries, for example, that “a cooktop that might be remotely controlled could start a fire,” it said: “We do not consider personal data security and privacy issues that may be related to IoT devices to be consumer product hazards that CPSC would address.”