Since this summer, the EU has required smartphone manufacturers to be more ecological with their new devices. In addition to an eco-label for phones, an update obligation was also introduced, which means that devices last longer. However, the text behind it does not appear to be that watertight.
Never lose sight of the fine print. The EU
5 Years of Updates
One of the most important achievements of that regulation concerns the update policy. Today, overly limited updates mean that a smartphone needs to be replaced, while the hardware is actually still functioning properly.
On its own website, Europe describes the obligation as follows: “The ecodesign rules will include: availability of operating system upgrades for longer periods (minimum 5 years from the date on which the last unit of a product model is no longer placed on the market).”
read also
What Can You Learn from the New EU Labels and Rules for Smartphones and Tablets?
That seems clear. The majority of manufacturers have understood the message. Since last year, most new devices suddenly come with six or seven years of guaranteed security updates. Knowing that these new devices would still be on the shelves when the Ecodesign rules came into effect, manufacturers have adjusted their update policies. Almost every device now receives at least five years of updates after the time of purchase.
The Fine Print
Except for Motorola, because Motorola’s lawyers have started reading the fine print. They believe that the EU does not require a minimum support period for updates at all, but only requires that any updates be offered free of charge. Neither Motorola nor any other smartphone manufacturer has ever charged for security updates, so that does not require any policy adjustment. Meanwhile, the manufacturer is putting new devices on the market that will receive barely four years of guaranteed security updates after launch.
We cannot find the fine print in question on the EU’s overview page. That is a summary and not a legally valid document. For the legal text, we need to go to Annex 2 regulation 2023/1670 of the commission, Lot X for friends. There we navigate to title 1.2 subtitle 6 paragraph a. What do we read:
“From the date of end of placement on the market to at least 5 years after that date, manufacturers, importers or authorised representatives shall, if they provide security updates, corrective updates or functionality updates to an operating system, make such updates available at no cost for all units of a product model with the same operating system.”
‘if’
The word if does a lot of the work here. It does not say that manufacturers have to offer updates, only that they must make them available free of charge if they offer updates.
It does not say that manufacturers have to offer updates.
The rest of the language is open to interpretation. For example, you can read that a manufacturer must provide all devices with an OS (Android) with updates for five years if they offer Android updates during that period, and that the obligation therefore applies to all product models with the same OS, but that is not a conclusive interpretation. You can just as easily interpret the article very restrictively, as concerning a version of Android for one specific model.
Worthless Provision
Motorola opts for the free interpretation and states that Annex 2 does not imply a guaranteed obligation to release updates for five or seven years. With that interpretation, the provision on updates is in fact worthless, since it then only guarantees that something remains free that was always free.
In practice, the Lot X / Ecodesign regulations do seem to have a positive impact. Since the regulations were released, the support time for smartphones has increased dramatically. Manufacturers such as Samsung and Google are also promoting seven years of updates worldwide. Apart from the effective obligation in the European regulation, a shift seems to have taken place. The fact remains that you still have to check what a manufacturer really guarantees.