Lag (2023:254) om vissa produkters och tjänsters tillgänglighet (Act on the accessibility of certain products and services), products: scope, accessibility requirements and the duties of manufacturers, representatives, importers and distributors

Section 3 of the Act covers general-purpose consumer computer hardware systems and their operating systems, payment terminals, cash machines, ticketing machines and check-in machines and interactive self-service information terminals intended for services the Act covers, consumer terminal equipment with interactive computing capability used for electronic communications services or for access to audiovisual media services, and e-readers.

Section 3 excludes from the self-service terminals it covers those mounted as integral parts of vehicles, aircraft, ships or rolling stock. Section 6 allows a covered product to be placed on the market only if it meets the accessibility requirements on information, user interface or functional design, the accessibility requirements of directly applicable acts adopted under Directive (EU) 2019/882, and the requirements of sections 11 to 13, 15, 16 and 25.

Section 9 presumes that a product that conforms wholly or partly to a harmonized standard whose references are published in the Official Journal of the European Union, or to a technical specification, meets the accessibility requirements to the extent the standard or specification covers them.

Section 11 requires the manufacturer, before placing a product on the market, to carry out or have carried out an assessment of whether the product conforms to the accessibility requirements and of any exemption under section 7, and to prepare and keep technical documentation as the basis for the assessment. Section 11 also requires the manufacturer to ensure that procedures exist so that all products made conform to the accessibility requirements.

Section 12 requires the manufacturer, where the assessment shows that the product meets the accessibility requirements, to draw up an EU declaration of conformity and affix the CE marking before placing the product on the market. Section 12 requires the EU declaration of conformity to show which accessibility requirements an invoked exemption under section 7 covers.

Section 13 requires the manufacturer to ensure that the product carries information text on its traceability, the manufacturer's contact details and how the consumer is to use the product. Section 14 lets the manufacturer appoint a representative by written mandate to carry out the tasks the mandate states.

Section 18 of the Ordinance bars the manufacturer from delegating to the representative the duty to design and make products that meet the accessibility requirements and to prepare the technical documentation. Section 15 requires an importer to ensure, before a product is placed on the market, that the manufacturer has carried out the measures in sections 11 and 12 and section 13 first paragraph points 1 and 2.

Section 15 requires an importer to give the product information text with its own contact details and on how the consumer is to use the product. Section 16 requires a distributor, before making a product available, to check that it carries the CE marking and the information text. Section 17 requires an importer and a distributor, while responsible for a product, to ensure that storage or transport conditions do not jeopardize its conformity with the accessibility requirements.

Section 18 makes an importer or distributor that places a product on the market in its own name or under its own trademark, or modifies a product already placed on the market so that conformity may be affected, take over the manufacturer's obligations. Section 19 requires a manufacturer or importer that considers a product it has placed on the market does not meet the accessibility requirements to take at once the action needed to bring it into conformity or, where appropriate, to withdraw it.

Section 19 requires manufacturers and importers to keep a register of products that do not conform and of complaints received about the non-conformity. Section 20 bars a distributor that considers a product does not conform from making it available until the distributor has made sure that action has been taken to bring it into conformity or, where appropriate, to withdraw it.

Section 21 requires a manufacturer, importer or distributor that considers a product does not meet the accessibility requirements to notify the market surveillance authorities of the Member States where the product has been made available at once, with details of the non-conformity and the action taken.

Section 22 requires manufacturers, representatives, importers and distributors to give a market surveillance authority, on request, all the information the operator holds that is needed to assess whether a product meets the accessibility requirements. Section 23 requires a manufacturer, representative, importer or distributor, on request from a market surveillance authority, to say who has supplied it with a product and to whom it has supplied one.

Section 16 of PTSFS 2024:5 sets the period of the duty in section 23 of the Act at five years after the operator has supplied or received the product. Section 14 of the Ordinance requires the manufacturer to keep the technical documentation and the EU declaration of conformity for five years from the day the product was placed on the market. Section 3 of PTSFS 2024:5 requires the assessment of conformity to be carried out through internal production control.

Section 8 of PTSFS 2024:5 requires the EU declaration of conformity to be in Swedish. Section 37 of the Act allows a market surveillance authority or a supervisory authority to order an economic operator to pay a sanction fee for breach of sections 6, 8, 11 to 13, 15 to 17 or 19 to 26, section 28 second paragraph point 6, or rules made under them.

Section 7 of the Act provides that an accessibility requirement does not apply to a product if it would involve a fundamental alteration of the product's basic character or impose a disproportionate burden on the economic operator concerned.