Korean Agency for Technology and Standards (“KATS”) Announces 2025 Product Safety Investigation Roadmap

KATS released on January 15, 2025 its roadmap for product safety investigations in 2025, targeting the products and objectives listed below.

Priority Items Subject to Investigations in 2025

As part of KATS’ annual practice of selecting “priority products” having above average incidences of non-compliance with safety standards or high likelihood of causing fires or accidents, KATS has identified 58 priority products for regular investigations in 2025. Among the priority products from 2024, 35 items remain on this year’s list, such as strollers, children’s bicycles, walking aids for the elderly, secondary batteries, and electric seating cushions. Further, 23 priority items have been newly added for 2025, including infant chairs, children’s textile products, children’s sports equipment, oil heaters, protective hiking helmets, computer power supplies, and electric ranges. The 58 items are broken down by category in the table below.

Category	Priority Products in 2025 Products that are newly added or have details changed in 2024 are bolded and underlined*
Electrical Products	Cables (nominal area of 96 mm² or less), power plugs and sockets, small-sized power converters for household use, electric seating cushions (DC), electric seating cushions (AC), electric mats, cable reels, steam thawing machines, electric heating pads (AC), range hoods, electric heating cabinets, money counting machines, batteries, electric blankets, LED lamps (modules), air conditioners, electric mattresses, dimmers, heaters for animal incubation and breeding, electric ovens, electric insect repellents, electric dryers, hair curlers, computer power supplies, electric ranges, electric rice cookers, electric portable grills (27 items)
Daily Products	Protective helmets for vehicles, protective eyewear for vehicles, furniture (limited to dressers for home and filing cabinets for the office with a height of 762 mm or higher), double eyelid tapes, eyelash thermoforming devices, portable laser devices, winter/fashion/sports masks, oil heaters, snowboards, hiking helmets, small step ladders, roller sports helmets, sports life jackets, buoyancy aids, general bicycles (15 items)
Children’s Products	Children’s products made of synthetic resin, children’s bicycles, children’s leather products, children’s eyeglass frames (including sunglasses), children’s accessories, children’s kick scooters, children’s furniture, children’s skateboards, toddlers’ tricycles, strollers, children’s inline skates, children’s play equipment, children’s umbrellas and parasols, children’s sports protection equipment (protective gear and safety helmets), infant chairs, children’s textile products (16 items)

Product Safety Management - Points of Emphasis

KATS also announced that it will prioritize in 2025 a number of product safety policies related to overseas direct-purchase products, unsafe local products (such as those having caused fires or accidents in Korea), and increased cooperation among the relevant agencies to curb illegal products in the market. More specifically, KATS plans to implement: (i) more safety surveys on overseas direct purchase products and strengthened monitoring of harmful products; (ii) safety surveys on potential fire or accident risks of domestically distributed products; (iii) greater coordination between the National Police Agency and the local governments to conduct crackdowns on the distribution of illegal products, such as non-KC certified products; and (iv) tighter oversight of recalls to reduce the number of recalled products in the market.

In particular, KATS plans to conduct a total of five safety surveys on 4,700 products in 2025. As to overseas direct-purchase products, it plans to survey more than 1,000 products, more than double the 450 products surveyed in 2024. Additionally, it plans to conduct routine safety investigations on products that pose risk of fires or accidents. Accordingly, we advise companies to conduct careful reviews of their products for compliance with safety certification requirements and for consumer safety risks, as well as closely monitor the products selected for KATS’ many investigations.

[Korean Version]

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