South Korea Revokes 1700 Product Eligibility Certificates, Including Huawei And Samsung

Photo; Robin Glauser / Unsplash

JAKARTA - The South Korean government has revoked around 1700 products including 378 companies from eligibility certification due to submitting false test records. These products include Huawei and Samsung communications equipment.

Summarized from The Register, Sunday June 20, under South Korea's radio waves Act, communication equipment needs to undergo a conformity assessment that examines its impact on other equipment and the human body, in order to manufacture, sell or import it. Not only that, the equipment must also be tested whether it has high radiation that can harm consumers.

Through the Ministry of Science and ICT, the equipment will be withdrawn from distribution channels and companies will also be barred from receiving new conformity assessments for the equipment for one year.

The cancellation marks the ministry's first and comes after an investigation last year, in which it also detected falsified test records.

Meanwhile, the ministry also stated that the technology company had submitted a test report that appeared to be issued by the US-based office of global testing and certification organization Bay Area Compliance Laboratories (BACL) but in reality, the test results emerged from its office in China.

It is known, South Korea did acknowledge or cooperate with test results from BACL based in the US, not those in China.

However, the companies argue that they were not involved in the trial record-keeping process, the equipment could still be canceled regardless of their intentions under the radio waves law.

TV camera maker China's Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Tech Co was the top offender with false records on 224 equipment, followed by Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co with 145 products and Huawei with 136 products.

While Samsung Electronics took 10th place with 23 fake records of products such as wireless speakers, Cisco has half a dozen cordless phones, and gaming hardware vendor Razer has 32 products, including laptops and headsets.

Keep in mind, the South Korean ministry's actions do not reflect any hostility towards China or any doubts about BACL's operations in China. Instead, the repeal seems to demand that these tests need to be carried out in countries covered by international treaties, and China is not one of those countries.