Eye Safety of Light-Emitting Diodes in Toys: The Results of Three Years of Market Surveillance

Between 2021 and 2023, the French market surveillance authority anonymously bought a sample of 50 toys containing a total of 103 individual LEDs from French retailers and had them tested by third-party laboratories accredited to perform tests in compliance with the international standard for electric toy safety IEC 62115, editions 2003 and 2017. Compliance with the harmonized EN IEC version of this standard is mandatory in the European Union under directive 2009/48/EC. The results revealed that 15 toys (30% of the tested toys) had at least one LED that did not comply with the eye safety requirements: 10 LEDs were non-compliant with respect to the retinal blue-light hazard, and 5 LEDs were non-compliant with respect to the retinal thermal hazard. A subsample of 10 toys with a total of 19 LEDs was assessed using the respective test methods corresponding to the 2003 and 2017 editions of the standard. The 2017 test method was found to be more permissive than the 2003 test method, a conclusion explained by the use of different risk assessment distances.