France Halts iPhone 12 Sales Over Radiation Levels (bbc.com) 158
AmiMoJo writes: France has ordered Apple to stop selling the iPhone 12 for emitting too much electromagnetic radiation. On Tuesday, the French watchdog which governs radio frequencies also told the tech giant to fix existing phones. The ANFR has advised Apple that if it cannot resolve the issue via a software update, it must recall every iPhone 12 ever sold in the country. France's digital minister Jean-Noel Barrot told French newspaper Le Parisien the decision was due to radiation levels above the acceptable threshold, according to Reuters.
He said the ANFR found the iPhone 12's Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) was above what is legally allowed. "Apple is expected to respond within two weeks," he said. "If they fail to do so, I am prepared to order a recall of all iPhones 12 in circulation. The rule is the same for everyone, including the digital giants."
He said the ANFR found the iPhone 12's Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) was above what is legally allowed. "Apple is expected to respond within two weeks," he said. "If they fail to do so, I am prepared to order a recall of all iPhones 12 in circulation. The rule is the same for everyone, including the digital giants."
Good thing I'm done having kids (Score:2)
Although I suppose if I wanted more I could move to France.
Re:Good thing I'm done having kids (Score:5, Funny)
The French won't sleep with you either.
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Iphone 12? (Score:5, Insightful)
Iphone 12? I mean, they took their time testing, didn't they?
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Iphone 12? I mean, they took their time testing, didn't they?
This feels a bit like the EU regulations about USB-C, where they waited until Apple was ready to comply anyway. Apple removed the iPhone 12 from sale worldwide yesterday with the announcement of the iPhone 15.
Now if they actually force them to recall all of those devices, that will hurt, but....
hold (Score:5, Funny)
Electromagnetic radiation also from the Sun (Score:2)
Send the Sun back to the maker of the Universe to get it re-designed?
Quote from the story:
"But the World Health Organization has previously sought to allay fears about radiation emitted by mobile phones.
"It says on its website there is no evidence to conclude that exposure to low level electromagnetic fields is harmful to humans."
Re:Electromagnetic radiation also from the Sun (Score:5, Funny)
The Sun radiates HUGE amounts of electromagnetic energy. Send the Sun back to the maker of the Universe to get it re-designed?
Try holding the sun right next to your head in place of your cell phone. Please, do it now.
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Naa, vacuum does not burn.
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The strength of electromagnetic radiation is reduced by distance cubed. The sun is a lot further away from your head than your phone (especially when you're using it).
Also phones use digital pulses. If you see the spectrum of these in a Fourier analysis you'll see extremely high frequency waves. The long term effects of this kind of radiation on soft tissues is still under debate, humans simply haven't been using cell phones for long enough.
Joking (Score:2)
Yes, I am aware of radiation measurements.
Next up: (Score:2)
Banning flashlights. It's ridiculous the amount of electromagnetic radiation those things put out.
You are holding it wrong. (Score:2)
Really?
Surely if this was an issue from the start (Score:2)
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...then the regulatory testing that Apple had to do before introducing the phone would have shown the same issue (unless it's a software issue of course).
Apple will have a test report somewhere that records extensive details about how the device met the limits. Although it's not uncommon for small device manufacturers to sometimes have a 'golden unit' designed to give you the best chance of passing a third party lab test (the tests are expensive!), I can't imagine this is something Apple does. Their internal lab is probably better than the one at most test houses.
But there are always potential issues. When you run the test, you can't test the iPhone with al
Normal Distributions (Score:2)
When you test SAR, you get a number.
If you test multiple times across multiple labs with multiple phones, the numbers you get will follow a normal distribution.
The tails of a normal distribution go out to infinity on the high side. For power, it can't go below 0 and the low side doesn't matter..
So if you do enough SAR tests you will be able to find one outside the limits.
What matters is the distribution, but type approval testing along with other types of certification testing they test once and get one num
France dumb (Score:2)
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Its a recall, not just a ban on sales. That means (if Apple can't fix it somehow) the phone becomes illegal to use in France and Apple will have to recall all iPhone 12 units being used in the country.
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Also, I would be interested to know what France's limit is, compared to FCC limit.
Announcing L'Phone! (Score:3)
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If the A380 is any indication, they'll spend billions of Euros, with large chunks coming from taxpayers, in a vein attempt to beat Apple/Google at their own game, and once complete they'll discover industry and consumers have moved on and there's not enough market left to cover development costs. :D
I found pictures of the probable end product [classicrotaryphones.com].
Clickbait headline is clickbait (Score:2)
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a legal limit in the EU, of which France is a member. If they have evidence that the iPhone 12 exceeds that limit, as TFA says it could trigger as cascade as other countries ban it too.
A simple fix for Apple would be to reduce the transmit power of which ever part of the phone is exceeding the limit, probably the modem. Of course, performance will be reduced as well, which brings its own consumer rights headaches. As such they will probably try to fight this one with their own tests.
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There is a legal limit in the EU, of which France is a member. If they have evidence that the iPhone 12 exceeds that limit, as TFA says it could trigger as cascade as other countries ban it too.
A simple fix for Apple would be to reduce the transmit power of which ever part of the phone is exceeding the limit, probably the modem. Of course, performance will be reduced as well, which brings its own consumer rights headaches. As such they will probably try to fight this one with their own tests.
Per the BBC, Apple claims its, as well as independent, testing shows the phone is within limits. I suspect, if they reduce power to comply if they are out of spec, they will claim they were required by law and thus consumers have no recourse.
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That probably wouldn't fly in Europe. If the initial performance that Apple advertised, that they gave to reviewers, that they demonstrated in their shops, is better than the post-fix performance they would be looking at paying compensation.
More likely they will claim it's a bug that was introduced at some point and it never improved performance at all. Like they did with the iPhone 4, where holding it normally would short the antennas out. They claimed that the signal strength display going down was a bug,
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I went looking, the relevant standard is 4.0 watts per kilogram. Apple claims the phone has tested at 0.98. So I can see the disputing the test results.
The use of kg is also a bit misleading, they're actually looking at 1 or 10 gram sample sizes, which is how a phone that uses around 4 watts can violated the standard.
From what I can find, there are no known negatives for exceeding the 4.0 standard by an order of magnitude or so. Past that you might actually start cooking stuff.
In this case the phone hits
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This is not about heating. Heating is understood. This is about other effects and because the EU does not want to do a long-term large-scale medical experiment here.
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:4, Informative)
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Cellphones cause social media. I'd call that negative physiological effect.
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You mean those phones that have used different frequencies and/or different modulation just a few years back? That "30 year" experiment?
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Interesting that they are calling out Apple when Apple isn't even one of the top radiators amongst cell phones.
ref: https://aboutradiation.blogspo... [blogspot.com]
Yeah, it's very revealing that that list from March 2019 that you link to doesn't include the iPhone 12, the subject of this article, which was released in October 2020. It's almost as if the people drawing it up didn't even have time travel.
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a legal limit in the EU, of which France is a member. If they have evidence that the iPhone 12 exceeds that limit, as TFA says it could trigger as cascade as other countries ban it too.
What's surprising is the iPhone was released three years ago and no doubt went through tons of FCC and Euro-equivalent testing. How did it take three years to notice the radio transmitters were too high?
(And to re-iterate what many others have mentioned, we're talking radio waves, not ionizing radiation from radioactive decay. There's zero cancer risk.)
I'm curious about the limits France sets. What bad thing do they think happens if someone absorbs more WiFi/Bluetooth/Cell signal radio energy than that limit? Why is the limit set where it is? And is this a different limit from the US, Canada, and the rest of the world?
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They might have changed the limit after testing was done.
Different modern, different antenna, different firmware, OS update. Any of them could have increased the transmit power.
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:4, Informative)
There is a legal limit in the EU, of which France is a member. If they have evidence that the iPhone 12 exceeds that limit, as TFA says it could trigger as cascade as other countries ban it too.
What's surprising is the iPhone was released three years ago and no doubt went through tons of FCC and Euro-equivalent testing. How did it take three years to notice the radio transmitters were too high?
The EU and FCC limits are the same for this particular test. This article [reuters.com] suggests the difference might be the methodology used by the French for testing:
The limits - based on the risk of burns or heatstroke from the phone's radiation - are already set ten times below the level where scientists found evidence of harm.
Croft said the French findings could differ from those recorded by other regulators because ANFR assesses radiation with a method that assumes direct skin contact, without intermediate textile layers, between the device and user.
A French government source also said the French test was different from the method used by Apple.
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Dumb question: don't the regulations specify the test methodology used associated with the limits?
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Regulations do, they are country dependent so they may differ from place to place. The question you're really fishing for is if there is an internationally recognised way of doing it, and the answer to that is yes, IEC 62209 Part 3. Incidentally Part 2 specifies the SAR for the body, and Part 1 specifies the SAR for the head. I haven't read it but I'm curious as to if the French regulation differs in testing from the IEC standard.
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How did it take three years to notice the radio transmitters were too high?
You're assuming that the device's power is unchanged. How many software changes or patches have occurred in this time? For virtually every modern RF modem the limits are entirely software defined and not hardware defined. It could very well be something has changed in operation.
I'm curious about the limits France sets.
The EU sets a higher limit for SAR in the head than America at 2W/kg vs America's 1.6W/kg, and that's fine. The limit exceeded is the general body limit. That is set to 4W/kg in France, in the EU, in actually most of the world since
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You're assuming that the device's power is unchanged. How many software changes or patches have occurred in this time? For virtually every modern RF modem the limits are entirely software defined and not hardware defined. It could very well be something has changed in operation.
Changing transmitter characteristics would require resubmission to the FCC for recertification. IDK how it works in the EU but I'd be shocked if the same didn't apply over there.
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:5, Funny)
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It's RF radiation, BT and WiFi are at the same frequencies (2.4GHz) than comes out of your microwave at 2.4kW. I don't know the frequency ranges in France of the top of my head, but I would assume it's all sub-5GHz, which to date, nobody has gotten cancer from living close to a cell tower or FM radio tower and that has multiple orders of magnitude more power than the cell phone (2W max) in your pocket.
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...nobody has gotten cancer from living close to a cell tower or FM radio tower and that has multiple orders of magnitude more power than the cell phone (2W max) in your pocket.
Two nits. First, I assume they're worried about cancer but it could be they're concerned with some other issue (e.g. interference). Second, since they're talking about absorption, I assume they're thinking about how much energy you absorb. Power at the transmitter matters but so does (square of the) distance.
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They're talking about SAR. As someone intimately familiar with MRI system, I know a thing or two about SAR. Radio DJs are sitting somewhere around 10-100m from a 2kW-2MW radio transmitter. An ancient cell phone was a 2W transmitter, currently most will transmit at 1W, but for WiFi, we're talking ~100mW if you hack the transmitter for extra range.
If you hold it like a normal person to your ear, your brain is nowhere in the vicinity of the transmitter, it's roughly 2cm away and is surrounded by mostly water.
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don't believe me, do you own research.
There it is folks. The one-hundred-percent reliable bullshit indicator.
I mean sure, there is a possibility that Jerry-Trollbait-Normandin does really mean research. Perhaps he means set up decades long trials of cellphone users and monitor the incidence of brain cancers that occur "just about the ear". One would expect a significant uptick since the invention of the cellphone, for instance. So a longitudinal study of the literature around these specific "just about the ear" cancers would definitely demonstr
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Have any evidence? No? Figures.
"They" must be suppressing the truth. Lucky for you, I have secured a limited supply of positive-ion crystal amulets that should protect you. If you're often near cellphones, I recommend also picking up a q-ionic bracelet, which will improve balance as you age and help with motion sickness, in addition to it's protective effects against 5g radiation.
Each one can be yours for just $19.95, plus shipping and handling. Order in the next 15 minutes and I'll throw in a second q
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Re: Too much EM radiation. (Score:2)
Why does it sound like you're someone who bought one of those "Super Special 5gHz wifi cancer protection 5g wi-fi telephone router radiation blocking safety cage for 5g safety" cages, put it around your home router and then pounced into the comments screaming about how your wifi doesn't work now?
If non- ionizing radiation was as dangerous as some folks think, all of us would have melted into tumors decades ago and we wouldn't be having this conversation. But hey, I've only been in the IT industry working wi
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Never mind that 50,000 Watt FM Radio transmitter 1 mile from your house.
EM is all over the place. At the levels they are talking about it's basically just noise.
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:5, Interesting)
Assuming a head as the target, say 0.5m^2, 50kW at 1600m gives 15mW for that head. A smartphone blasting 1W right next to your ear gives about 0.5W for that head, i.e. 30 times as much. Also, absorption depends on frequency and type of damage done. Generally, the higher, the worse for damage to genes, for example. Smartphones are using frequency an order of magnitude higher than that FM sender. And lastly, we have long-term statistics for that FM sender. We do not for smartphones.
And then you also look at how many people are living that "1 mile" from that "50kW transmitter" and see how stupid that argument actually is.
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Best not to think about the unshielded fusion reactor outside.
Re: Too much EM radiation. (Score:2)
How close to that do you live?
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Close enough that you can demonstrate a considerably greater SAR versus a cell phone simply by going out in the sun and noticing that you get hot.
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:4, Informative)
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The shielding is often pretty shit in the peak emission range though. Admittedly, it can be better around 2.4 GHz, but still pretty bad.
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Its not just damage to your DNA, radiation activates genes.
"Exposure to cell phone radiation up-regulates apoptosis genes in primary cultures of neurons and astrocytes
The results show that even relatively short-term exposure to cell phone radiofrequency emissions can up-regulate elements of apoptotic pathways in cells derived from the brain, and that neurons appear to be more sensitive to this effect than astrocytes." https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
and viruses (which are just DNA code tethered or incorpor
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Generally, the higher, the worse for damage to genes
It's non-ionizing radiation.
It's non-ionizing radiation.
It's non-ionizing radiation.
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Right, and I use that phone at maximum transmission power right next to my head maybe 2 minutes at a time, maybe twice a day. The radio tower transmits 24/7.
I would think the low-power standby/home-ping of a cell phone in my pocket next to my nuts is a bigger concern given the duration of exposure.
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Well, if you have your phone all of 4 minutes active close to your head every 24 hours, you are an even rarer bird than those living close to that FM radio station.
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And lastly, we have long-term statistics for that FM sender. We do not for smartphones.
Err yeah we do. Smartphones aren't magical, and we've been using frequencies between 1 and 6GHz for cell phones since 1988. In terms of damage from EM waves that is a hell of a long term statistic.
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Well, no surprise you do not understand long-term medical statistics given your mental performance on anything else. You probably also have missed that frequencies used and power-levels used have changed several times in that period. Again, no surprise. Oh, and proves have dropped, so people are using them more. And some other things which make your statement the usual nonsense.
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And everyone around you thanks you for that annoyance.
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:4, Interesting)
A higher radiation dose than what's considered safe isn't a good thing.
It's RF radiation and perfectly safe. That isn't the issue.
The problem is that it interferes with other devices. Transmission limits in the cellular spectrum are limited so lots of phones can operate in an area without interfering with each other.
Re: Too much EM radiation. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Transmission limits in the cellular spectrum are limited so lots of phones can operate in an area without interfering with each other.
That's not exactly accurate. Every cell phone on the market is capable of much higher transmit power than it routinely operates at. The base station provides continuous feedback on the quality of received signal and your phone adjusts its transmit power accordingly. It will use the lowest transmit power possible, for the reason you note (minimizing interference), and also to minimize power consumption in a battery powered device that consumers weirdly expect to get through the day without being tethered
Re:Too much EM radiation. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Too much EM radiation. (Score:2)
A higher radiation dose than what's considered safe isn't a good thing.
Seriously? Considered safe by whom? There's no well defined safe limit of non-ionizing radiation, mainly because it's incredibly easy to tell if you have too much: If you feel enough heat from the EM source to feel uncomfortable, then you're getting too much. Move away from it.
It's not like ionizing radiation where a dose that isn't immediately uncomfortable can make you sick or kill you later on.
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To this day I only use my mobile phone in Speakerphone mode.
That is far more hazardous to your health than any previewed danger from your cellphone...
Re: Too much EM radiation. (Score:4, Insightful)
Well you are pretty much sticking your head in a microwave oven
The typical microwave oven operates at around 2.45 GHz and runs on 800-1000 watts of power.
The typical iPhone operates at 700-2100 MHz runs and runs on around 20 watts of power. But probably only 1-5 watts is dedicated to RF transmission.
So in no way, shape, or form is using an iPhone (or any cellular device) equivalent to a microwave. Honestly, it took me 5 mins of research to find all the facts on this.
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I mean I know you can get gross physical effects from a 50w beam through a parabolic dish, at least in Ku band (12-18ghz). Walking in front of operating dish with a low look angle is really bad for your health. But it's a dish concentrating the beam and the power is way above what a cellphone could put out.
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But it's a dish concentrating the beam and the power is way above what a cellphone could put out.
Exactly. Not only is the power use well below any harmful levels, is non-focused and so the inverse-square law applies. EM waves intersecting with your body is all but negligible at best.
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And you failed completely to find the relevant facts. That Microwave oven is _shielded_ very, very carefully and if you put your head into it while running (after disabling the safeties that are there for a good reason), you are dead quite fast. That iPhone has an antenna that is optimized for maximum emission.
Re: Too much EM radiation. (Score:2)
No, you're not. You'll feel the heat from it and back away or at least recoil from the pain long before that happens.
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At 500W? Forget it. 3rd degree burns if you are lucky.
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Just so you can discover how incredibly wrong you are, do a little experiment:
With a 1,200 watt microwave, take 16 ounces of lukewarm water, put it in a cup, and put it in your microwave for 10 seconds. Now touch the water -- how hot is it? Spoiler: If anything, it's just barely warmer than when you put it in.
Now do the same with half of an ounce of water. Pretty damn hot this time isn't it? The reason for this is EM energy at frequencies this low basically turn water and fat molecules they interact with, e
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Oh and here's something much smaller than your head that went into a microwave, and a veterinarian determined that it was uninjured:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/vi... [dailymail.co.uk]
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By relevant facts do you mean "relevant facts that support my own argument? Because the facts that I posted are THE relevant facts. An iPhone emits in the radio wave spectrum, is omnidirectional, and consumes very little relative power. None of those things are similar to a microwave oven at all.
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So you were not implying a microwave puts out more RF than an iPhone? In that case, my apologies, because it is correct that a microwave puts out a lot less RF than an iPhone on the outside. Of course, on the inside it puts out a lot more.
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From the OP I responded to
Well you are pretty much sticking your head in a microwave oven
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This is also misleading because the microwave does its best to bounce those microwaves around to get maximum absorption. Your phone does its best to do the opposite; any microwaves absorbed by you are not useful for sending data.
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I mean, what part about the frequency disparity and the power consumption disparity did you not get?
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Power emission and SAR are not the same thing.
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SAR?
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But probably only 1-5 watts is dedicated to RF transmission.
FCC docs [fcc.gov] are public record for those who want to drill into the minutia. Max TX power on iPhone 12 is 32.5dBm (~1.7 watts) on GSM 850MHz. GSM has a duty cycle of 1/8 in "full rate" operation, it's a TDMA based technology, so your actual RF exposure is less than the raw power level implies. GSM is also legacy and unlikely to be widely used these days. Max TX power on all other technologies, including LTE and NR, is 25.7dBm (~0.37 watts).
It's worth pointing out that no cell phone routinely operates at f
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Props for bringing an even bigger fact hammer.
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Microwave ovens output less than 5mW, i.e. 400 times less than a cellphone. They are very carefully shielded, because getting hit by a 500W microwave beam is pretty deadly pretty fast.
https://kitchengearoid.com/mic... [kitchengearoid.com]
Seriously, does nobody understand basic Physics anymore?
Re: Too much EM radiation. (Score:2)
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Well, ok. Although I do not understand how that comparison makes sense. To be fair, that was not your comparison, you just answered to it.
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You know that the maximum 2W radiated by a phone, and the 1kW radiated inside a microwave is a little different, right? Like literally 500x the power?
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The absolute cluelessness of the general public baffles me. Just spout off any old BS they think might be right. A phone is NOT going to harm you in any way, shape, or form, unless it is thrown at your eyeball very hard or someone sends you granny porn.
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"For sale: 10,000 rifles, never fired, dropped once."
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so no brave ones left for WW II, got it.