The right to repair

European Parliament, Brussels. © iStock.

The European Union has made a huge stride towards the adoption of stricter rules on the “right to repair” to better protect consumers. The resolution was adopted with 395 in favour and just 94 against, with 207 abstentions. The European Commission (the EU’s governing body) was mandated to “develop and introduce mandatory labelling, to provide clear, immediately visible and easy-to-understand information to consumers on the estimated lifetime and repairability of a product at the time of purchase”. The resolution also calls for better availability of repair instructions and parts for both independent repair shops and individual consumers to make repairs easier and extend device lifespans. European Parliamentarians adopted this bill with Apple in mind; the California company publicly opposed right to repair legislation in the U.S., arguing that it could jeopardize consumer safety and device security.

⇨ YouTube, “iFixit at work in the European Parliament.”

⇨ TechRepublic, Owen Hughes, “Broke your smartphone? 'Right to repair' rules just took another step forward.”

⇨ iFixit, Kyle Wiens, “European Parliament votes for right to repair.”