Retailer Reporting Program
Background
The so-called retailer reporting program (RRP) is a CPSC/industry partnership program through which participants report specific product incident data elements (e.g., customer complaints, consumer reviews, defective product returns, and product liability cases) to the CPSC on a weekly or biweekly basis. The information submitted under this program allows the CPSC to identify emerging product safety hazards and injury trends. Several RILA members currently participate and a number of other RILA members have pending applications to join. In return for the burden of gathering and reporting the product safety incident data elements, the benefits accorded to program participants includes confidential treatment of information and a commitment by the CPSC not to pursue any civil penalties in connection with the information provided under the RRP. However, in 2014 the CPSC's General Counsel issued a letter to participants that proposed to eliminate confidential treatment for submitted information and would revoke the CPSC's prior commitment not to pursue civil penalties based on information provided through the program.
RILA Efforts
RILA is working to reinstate the benefits and expand the membership of this program. To this end, RILA has advocated in Congress for additional funds to be appropriated to the CPSC to update its data analytics capabilities, so that the agency can have better tools to analyze larger data sets. RILA has also advocated at the CPSC’s Budget Priorities hearing for the agency to codify and formalize this program so that the information gathered through it can truly be used to help identify emerging product safety hazards.
