Product Liability Directive (PLD)

(32) In order to reflect the increasing prevalence of inter-connected products, the assessment of a product’s safety should take into account the reasonably foreseeable effects of other products on the product in question, for example within a smart home system. The effect on a product’s safety of any ability to learn or acquire new features after it is placed on the market or put into service should also be taken into account to reflect the legitimate expectation that a product’s software and underlying algorithms are designed in such a way as to prevent hazardous product behaviour. Consequently, a manufacturer that designs a product with the ability to develop unexpected behaviour should remain liable for behaviour that causes harm. In order to reflect the fact that in the digital age many products remain within the manufacturer’s control after being placed on the market, the moment in time a product leaves the manufacturer’s control should also be taken into account in the assessment of a product’s safety. A product can also be found to be defective on account of its cybersecurity vulnerability, for example where the product does not fulfil safety-relevant cybersecurity requirements.