United KingdomConsumer Rights Act 2015, section 46, remedy for damage that digital content causes to a consumer's device or other digital content
Consumer Rights Act 2015, c. 15, s. 46
In force since .
A product liability rule binding public and private bodies.
- Private right of action
- Yes
- Instrument type
- an act of a legislature
As of .
What it requires
- This binds a trader that supplies digital content to a consumer under a contract; a trader acts for purposes relating to its trade, business, craft or profession, and a consumer is an individual acting wholly or mainly outside them (sections 2(2), 2(3) and 46(1)).
- If your digital content damages the consumer's device or other digital content, and the damage would not have occurred had you exercised reasonable care and skill, repair the damage within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer, bearing the necessary costs, or compensate the consumer with an appropriate payment (section 46(1) to (3)).
- Pay any compensation without undue delay and within 14 days of agreeing that the consumer is entitled to it, and charge the consumer no fee for the payment (section 46(5) and (6)).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text, as of .
What this law does
If the consumer requires a remedy, a trader that supplied digital content to a consumer under a contract must either repair the damage the digital content causes to the consumer's device or to other digital content that belongs to the consumer, or compensate the consumer with an appropriate payment, where the damage is of a kind that would not have occurred if the trader had exercised reasonable care and skill. Digital content means data which are produced and supplied in digital form.
A consumer is an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside that individual's trade, business, craft or profession. A trader is a person acting for purposes relating to that person's trade, business, craft or profession. To repair, the trader must repair the damage within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer, and bear the necessary costs of repair.
A compensation payment must be made without undue delay, and in any event within 14 days beginning with the day on which the trader agrees that the consumer is entitled to it. A consumer with a right to a remedy may bring a claim in civil proceedings to enforce it. The Limitation Act 1980 applies to the claim as if it were an action founded on simple contract. Business includes the activities of any government department or local or public authority. Section 46 has been in force since .
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app crawls the web, trains models, generates content with AI, deploys a chatbot, sends automated outreach, makes high-risk automated decisions, processes voice recordings, processes biometric data, publishes adult content, operates a social platform, serves under-18s, operates an app store, ships a mobile app, reuses other publishers' content, distributes a software product, records calls, records text chat or tracks devices.