Product safety priorities

Our product safety priorities for 2025-26

Each year, we identify product safety priorities to target high risk unsafe consumer goods and to raise public awareness.

In 2025–26, the ACCC’s key areas of focus are:

	Digital economy Competition, product safety, consumer and fair-trading issues in the digital economy, with a focus on misleading or deceptive advertising within influencer marketing, online reviews, in-app purchases and unsafe consumer products.
	Young children Consumer product safety issues for young children, with a focus on compliance with button battery standards and raising awareness about new infant sleep and toppling furniture standards.
	Mandatory standards Updating mandatory standards to help improve safety, broaden choice and lower costs.
	Lithium-ion battery safety The ACCC will continue to prioritise raising consumer awareness about the safe use of lithium-ion batteries and our work with state and territory electrical safety regulators in managing product recalls. Regulatory reforms are also underway, designed to reduce the product safety risks from lithium-ion batteries.
	Improving product safety data to identify risks and protect consumers Product safety data and engagement with consumers and businesses improves our understanding of product safety risks and informs our responses.

Learn more about how we identify and prioritise product safety risks.

How we will implement the priorities

This section outlines some of the important work that we will carry out this year to implement each product safety priority.

	Digital economy The ACCC will strengthen product safety in the digital economy through: engaging with online marketplaces to encourage them to proactively ensure that products supplied through their platforms are safe strengthening commitments under the Australian Product Safety Pledge to ensure their ongoing effectiveness, and assessing the suitability to expand the pledge to other online marketplaces using data and intelligence to identify systemic and high-risk consumer product safety concerns and addressing these using regulation, education, compliance and enforcement, where appropriate continuing to work collaboratively with regulators across Australia and internationally to address the sale of unsafe products online.
	Young children The ACCC will prioritise consumer product safety issues for young children by: identifying and addressing systemic non compliance with button battery standards and other high risk product safety hazards for young children, including through compliance and enforcement outcomes leveraging enforcement outcomes for general deterrence, and to raise consumer awareness of product safety hazards promoting compliance with the new toppling furniture and infant sleep standards, including working collaboratively with state and territory regulators to assess and address any non-compliance.
	Mandatory standards The ACCC will make it easier for Australian mandatory standards to remain up to date and consistent with international standards by: reviewing a range of mandatory standards following recent changes to the mandatory standards framework recommending changes to Australian mandatory standards to allow suppliers to comply if their products meet certain local, regional or international voluntary standards, as they exist from time-to-time.
	Lithium-ion battery safety The ACCC will support the safe use of lithium-ion batteries through: continuing to raise consumer awareness about the safe use of lithium-ion batteries contributing to reform programs to improve lithium-ion battery safety, including the development of a harmonised national framework by state electrical safety regulators, and the development of effective and appropriate standards relating to testing, composition and disposal of lithium-ion batteries that take account of existing specialist expertise monitoring the effectiveness of recalls of unsafe lithium-ion battery products, including our continued work on the recall of LG home energy storage system batteries.
	Improving product safety data to identify risks and protect consumers We will focus on: working with regulators and key stakeholders to obtain and, where appropriate, share product safety data and intelligence, with a focus on high-risk product safety issues and the timeliness and accuracy of data monitoring product safety incidents and risks associated with emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence and digitally connected products implementing strategies to increase reporting of product safety incidents to the ACCC, including awareness raising and compliance and enforcement, where appropriate consultation and research to better understand product safety risks affecting Australian consumers, with a focus on vulnerable consumers, and taking proactive steps to reduce harm.

While we have identified priorities for 2025–26, the ACCC may also pursue other product safety risks which arise during the year and can cause serious harm to consumers.

Product safety priorities

On this page

Our product safety priorities for 2025-26

Digital economy

Young children

Mandatory standards

Lithium-ion battery safety

Improving product safety data to identify risks and protect consumers