France sales ban prompts other European countries to examine iPhone 12 radiation levels

[midian182]

What just happened? Belgium, Germany, and other European nations have said they will or could examine the health risks of the iPhone 12 after France banned the device from sale due to its radiation levels being above the allowed threshold.

It was reported yesterday that the ANFR, the French agency that regulates radio frequencies, had notified Apple of its decision to ban iPhone 12 sales after tests showed the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) exceeded the allowed limit. The ANFR said accredited labs had measured absorption of electromagnetic energy by the body at 5.74 watts per kilogram during tests simulating the phone being held in the hand or kept in a pocket, higher than the European standard absorption rate of 4.0 watts per kilogram.

France's junior minister for the digital economy, Jean-Noël Barrot, said, "In practical terms, this decision could have a snowball effect."

Reuters reports that Germany is watching the situation closely. The country's network regulator said it would also examine the iPhone 12's radiation concerns if France's probe advances sufficiently. Germany's network regulator BNetzA added that the work in France could act as a guide for Europe as a whole.

Belgium said it would review the potential health risks linked to the iPhone 12's radiation levels. Mathieu Michel, Belgium's state secretary for digitalization, said in a statement that he had reached out to the country's regulator to ask for an analysis about the potential danger of the 2020 handset.

The Netherlands is also looking into the matter and intends to ask Apple for an explanation, though the country's digital watchdog said there was "no acute safety risk." Italy is also monitoring the situation, and Spain's consumer association is urging an iPhone 12 ban similar to France's. Britain has not announced any plans.

Apple says it has provided France's ANFR with multiple Apple and independent third-party lab results proving its compliance with all applicable SAR regulations and standards in the world. The company added that it was contesting the results of ANFR's review and would continue to engage with the agency to show it is compliant.

The World Health Organization website states that numerous studies have shown "no adverse health effects have been established as being caused by mobile phone use." The safety limit thresholds, based on the risk of burns or heatstroke from the phone's radiation, are set well below those levels where scientists have found evidence of harm.

Given that it's a three-year-old model, a ban on iPhone 12 sales in multiple European countries is unlikely to significantly impact the $95 billion revenue Apple generates from sales in the continent.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/100152-france-sales-ban-prompts-other-european-countries-examine.html

 

[VitalyT]

Now that people are eyeing to order iPhone 15, wouldn't it be very important to know how it compares?

 

[Athlonite]

Well well well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black froggies complaining about radiation after alll the radioactive crap they left at mururoa atoll

 

[hwertz]

Why are they testing this model now? Why didn't they run a SAR test in 2020?
So, I had a Motorola Droid 2 Global years back that got GREAT fringe reception, quite exceptional. It also seemed to run "rather hot" while doing so.... well, I got a debug display up, and despite the CDMA power limit for a handheld phone supposed to be 250mw, it'd run at up to 1.5 watts in fringe coverage! Luckily it ran hot enough at that point I had no temptation to hold it up to my head to actually make a call on it.

If France's results are even vaguely correct, Apple has some 'splaining to do. EU limit for SAR is 4W/kg, but FCC limit is 1.6W/kg making that 5.74W/kg they measured even more over the limit.

 

[rmcrys]

They are extremely funny:

- same case as with VW/ Diesel-gate: they don't do the work of controlling anything and for what they are paid for

- after years of uncontrolled emissions, because someone sounds the alarm "wow we didn't do nothing all this years!!! Before the population notices that we are being paid to drink coffee and take care or private business, let's test a lot of them quickly and post the results, to seem that we discovered it!!!"

Bang! "The French did it" -> "let's do the same or else they think we (still) don't do something about it...."

I would immediately dissolve all these public entities, send them definitely home and develop new ones that MANDATORY have to analyze EACH device immediately after they are released to market to check if everything is correct. Be it from Apple, be it from a new Chinese company, all are the same. If we discover that some company changed the firmware to increase the values after the test, a 10% profit done should cover the thing...

 

[hwertz]

They are extremely funny:

- same case as with VW/ Diesel-gate: they don't do the work of controlling anything and for what they are paid for

- after years of uncontrolled emissions, because someone sounds the alarm "wow we didn't do nothing all this years!!! Before the population notices that we are being paid to drink coffee and take care or private business, let's test a lot of them quickly and post the results, to seem that we discovered it!!!"

The messed up thing about dieselgate, VW got caught because a university was studying their engine management strategies, probably under funding from a competitor to determine "OK, they are meeting emissions without urea injection, or aggressive EGR that the other diesel cars are requiring... how?" with the goal to be to be able to replicate it rather than being some trade secret of VW. Of course what they found was it ONLY met emissions when it was driven through the exact drive cycle of the EPA or EU emissions tests.

Also... the big diesel makers had a similar scandal. Out of Caterpillar, Detroit Diesel, Volvo heavy engines, Cummins, and Mack, I don't recall which, but one of them had fitted their engines with what essentially the kind of "smog controls" late 1970s era cars had; aggressive EGR, vacuum hoses with temperature switches, reed valves, etc. They met emissions but it cut down on power and MPG. One company sucked it up and put more advanced direct injection on their engines and easily met emissions. The other 3, just like VW, got these massive fines for having the trucks meet emissions ONLY on the EPA drive, and run however they wanted otherwise. (This got caught because a few semi drivers wondered why their trucks ran like crap and got terrible MPG only on specific routes and ran fine otherwise, and a few of them decided to have someone seriously look into why and found out the truth... those routes happened to mimic the EPA drive cycle close enough the engine went into "emissions test" mode. Then they turned their conclusions into the EPA.) Within a few years after that, all 5 had more advanced injection.

 

[rmcrys]

The messed up thing about dieselgate, VW got caught because a university was studying their engine management strategies, probably under funding from a competitor .

You're right, unfortunately most countries don't do that work and it happened to work out that "independent" sources discovered it. But, as you said, many others did the same. In Europe all brands did it , some as bad or worse than VW but it was VW that was discovered. Why almost no-one in Europe put fines to these companies? Because they knew it. And Germany put fines just to shut most parties up, at the beginning they didn't want to do nothing about it

 

[Q Wales]

It would be good if they published the results of all the phones so we can see if this is just the top of the list of a lot of similarly rated mobiles.

And what about watches?

 

[PurpleYoda]

And what about watches?

Aha! Now that is a million dollar question!