Due to an accident in a daycare center, the market supervisory authorities drew our attention to the fact that sockets with shutters are often advertised as "childproof", with "child protection" or similar.
In the underlying accident, a child playing in a daycare center with a pipe cleaner used for handicraft purposes is said to have come into contact with active parts of a VDE-certified socket outlet with a shutter. According to the daycare center operator, the socket in question was explicitly selected because of its advertised "child protection".
On this occasion, we would like to point out that VDE certification of a socket outlet with shutter is in no way suitable as proof of "child protection" or similar. The use of the VDE certification mark for a socket outlet with shutter in conjunction with terms such as "childproof", "child protection" or similar must be classified as misleading, as it falsely suggests that children can use these socket outlets unsupervised and in any way without any danger to them.
Continued use of the VDE certification mark within this context will therefore be regarded as misuse of the VDE mark and will result in the VDE mark being withdrawn. The VDE Institute has been following up on such incidents since July 1, 2020.
Due to the serious incident described above, all new certifications of socket outlets with shutters (this also applies to updates of existing certificates) are issued exclusively on the basis of the new standard DIN VDE 0620-1 VDE 0620-1:2021-02. Accordingly, using gage 13, no live parts may be accessible via the contact entry holes or via any other openings of the socket outlet that are accessible when installed.
