Recently, Ms. Li from Weifang, Shandong Province, accidentally discovered that the fingerprint lock that she had used for more than half a year at home could not only be unlocked with her feet and elbows, but also could be opened with cat's claws. In this regard, the fingerprint lock manufacturer responded that it may be caused by misoperation and factory reset, or it may be a problem with the circuit board.
Many netizens in the comment area complained that the quality problem of the fingerprint lock is not an isolated case, and there are potential safety hazards in use, and it is not as safe as the mechanical lock.
Source: Weibo
In recent years, with the improvement of people's living standards, as the first entry-level product of smart home, smart door locks use biometrics, password recognition and other technologies to solve the dilemma of key loss and key forgetting, which is favored by consumers and the market is developing rapidly. According to the data of the National Lock Information Center, around 2000, the mainland smart door lock industry began to develop, in 2015 there were about 600 smart door lock companies in the mainland, and in 2022, the number of smart door lock companies in China has exceeded 3,000. However, the smart door lock market is mixed, and it has been repeatedly exposed to quality defects and potential safety hazards.
In August 2022, Ms. Zhu, the owner of Weinan, Shaanxi Province, found that her smart door was actually a "decoration". According to her account, a colleague who temporarily lives at her house went out to run errands, but when she came home, she found that her mobile phone had been stolen. Ms. Zhu noticed that the smart door lock equipped by the developer only needs to hold the handrail of the entrance door up, and the door can be opened, without the need for fingerprints and passwords. Therefore, she believes that smart locks have obvious flaws and are the root cause of the theft. Based on this, she asked the manufacturer to replace the smart lock and compensate for the property damage.
In October this year, a "woman living alone was tried to open the password lock by a strange man, only 1 person short of the password" news aroused social concern, while caring about the safety of women living alone, many netizens questioned the security degree of the electronic lock in the incident, thinking that if the security performance of the electronic lock is up to standard, the man should call the police when he tries the password many times to deter intruders.
In 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation randomly inspected 157 batches of electronic lock products on 11 e-commerce platforms, of which 34 batches were suspected of not having a factory name and address, and the quality failure rate of the remaining batches exceeded 34%. In the results of the national supervision and random inspection of the quality of electronic door locks sold online in 2022, there are 18 batches of electronic locks that are unqualified, mainly due to the three items of anti-vandal alarm, security, and axial static load of the lock tongue.
In this regard, some industry insiders have analyzed that this "pseudo-smart" door lock is flooded, in fact, some smart lock companies in order to survive in the market, do not hesitate to sacrifice the interests of users, and use cutting corners and shoddy means in exchange for low prices, resulting in uneven product quality, thereby damaging the user's sense of trust in the product and the sense of use experience. In addition, the lack of after-sales service and a complete service chain of goods has also been criticized by consumers and has become a pain point in the industry.
In this regard, lawyer Zhu Qimin, a member of the lawyer expert database of "Rule of Law Daily" and a partner of Beijing Hankun Law Firm, said that in the case of product defects in smart door locks, consumers have the right to require sellers to perform obligations such as returns, replacements, and repairs in accordance with Article 24 of the Consumer Rights Protection Law and Article 40 of the Product Quality Law; If the smart door lock causes losses to consumers, the seller should also compensate. If it is not possible to negotiate with the seller, consumers can also request the consumer association to mediate, file a complaint or file a lawsuit through 12315 to protect their legitimate rights and interests. In addition, she emphasized that "the producer is the ultimate responsible person for the product and should be responsible for the quality of the product he produces, so the seller can recover from the producer after assuming the liability for compensation." ”
Regarding product after-sales service, lawyer Luo Juan, a member of the lawyer expert database of the Rule of Law Daily and a partner of Beijing Kangda Law Firm, pointed out that according to the relevant provisions of Articles 23 and 24 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests, operators should ensure the quality, performance, use and validity period of the goods or services they provide under the normal use of goods or services. Where the goods or services provided by proprietors do not meet the quality requirements, consumers may return them in accordance with state provisions and the agreement of the parties, or require proprietors to perform obligations such as replacement or repair. In the absence of national regulations and agreement between the parties, the consumer may return the goods within seven days from the date of receipt; If the statutory conditions for terminating the contract are met after seven days, the consumer may return the goods in a timely manner, and if the statutory conditions for terminating the contract are not met, the operator may be required to perform obligations such as replacement and repair.
It is worth mentioning that Li Hongsheng, director of the lock certification project of the testing center of the Ministry of Public Security, said in an interview with Beijing Youth Daily that "smart door lock" is called "electronic anti-theft lock" in the professional field, but there is no accurate definition of what "smart" is. The current effective standards mainly include the mandatory national standard GB 21556-2008 "General Technical Conditions for Lock Security" and the mandatory public security industry standard GA 374-2019 "Electronic Anti-theft Lock". Among them, GB 21556-2008 on the requirements of electronic anti-theft locks mainly adopted the 2001 version of the GA374 standard, many of the content has not been able to adapt to the new development of locks, new changes, the testing center will take the lead in the revision of the standard anti-theft lock part of the work, is expected to improve the physical security, network security and biological security of the lock.
Source: Rule of Law Network