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Comment by gregoriol | Hacker News Reader

Why did it take them so long to check the device? The iPhone 12 has been sold since 2020, so 3 years. They probably can't check every model released, but this is one of the most sold devices. If it was actually dangerous it would have been great to know it as soon as it got released, it's not some obscure product that no one heard of on the French market.

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French person here. Public institutions in France are notorious for taking their time.

I doubt it works this way. Regulatory bodies check your paperwork. They don't test things themselves.

From the article:

> The mobile phones were tested by an accredited laboratory, which allows the ANFR to ensure that the SAR values comply with European regulation.

Governments do test products now and then, yes. But they aren't in the habit of routinely testing new products when they hit the market. I don't know what prompted this particular test, but it wouldn't surprise me if the ANFR just one day decided to test a bunch of models of iPhone (or a bunch of phone models in general) kind of arbitrarily.

There was a similar case recently where Sweden's equivalent decided to test a bunch of models of EV chargers and found some lacking.

In general, outside of these random tests, "they check the paperwork, not the thing itself" is correct.

Sure, but the "accredited" in accredited laboratory is itself a paperwork audit-based process. This is how you get your own paperwork as a manufacturer to give to an auditor to say "Look at our paperwork". It doesn't mean the regulator is somehow testing things itself.

How do you know that? The article says they measured it is 5,74 W/kg, which Apple disagrees with. So in which paper would that number appear?

Sorry, I don't understand the question. "In which paper" presumably doesn't refer to an academic paper?

It’s always like that in France, same for taxation.

First you declare it yourself, then later they may or may not inspect it themselves.

This way the government can sometimes save money by not doing inspections, in the long run cheater will always get caught.

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