Amazon Is Selling Illegal and Non-Compliant Buoyant Aids for Children

Amazon have been and continue to allow unsafe,  non-compliant and illegal buoyant aids for swimming to be sold and are even promoting them on its marketplace. These products, often targeted at parents of very young children, fail to meet basic safety and legal standards set out in UK and EU law. Despite repeated warnings and industry advice, Amazon’s response and lack of action has revealed alarming gaps in its compliance protocols.

Potentially Dangerous Products Masquerading as Safe and Compliant

Buoyant aids for swimming swim vests, float jackets are classed as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) under Regulation (EU) 2016/425, retained in UK law post-Brexit. This means they must be rigorously tested and comply with EN 13138-1:2021+AC:2022, be CE or UKCA marked, and come with clear instructions and safety warnings. However, many of the products currently available on Amazon’s marketplace do not meet these basic criteria.

What Is EN 13138-1 and Why It Matters

The EN 13138-1 standard, formally titled “Buoyant aids for swimming instruction”, is a European harmonised standard that sets out safety and performance requirements for swim vests, arm bands, and similar floatation devices used by children in aquatic environments. It includes:

·       Material durability and buoyancy performance testing

·       Clear age and weight guidance

·       Conspicuity

·       Secure fit to prevent slippage

·       Mandatory warnings and user instructions in appropriate languages

·       Labelling and traceability requirements

Products falling within the scope of EN 13138 are classed as Category II Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)under Regulation (EU) 2016/425 (retained in UK law post-Brexit). Therefore, they must be independently tested, bear CE or UKCA marking, and come with a valid Declaration of Conformity (DoC). These legal requirements exist to ensure that only safe and reliable buoyant aids are sold to the public—especially where children are involved.

Industry Warnings Ignored

Multiple safety experts and industry insiders have flagged these issues with Amazon, urging the retail giant to remove the offending products. Some of these warnings were submitted via a third-party route, even after direct communication with Amazon they have failed to bring about meaningful change.

The findings were stark: Amazon’s compliance teams often demonstrated a lack of understanding of the legal requirements for buoyancy aids. Even when provided with detailed evidence of non-conformity including non-sensical labelling, garbled instructions, sizing discrepancies and forged or invalid Declarations of Conformity and certificates of compliance Amazons teams routinely approve these products for sale. In some cases, illegal products are not only allowed to remain on the platform but are actively promoted to Best Seller status through sponsored listings and “Amazon’s Choice” labelling.

A Systemic Compliance Failure

The crux of the problem appears to lie in Amazon’s self-certification model, where third-party sellers upload their own compliance documents with minimal oversight. In theory, this is supposed to be backed by internal audits and safety reviews. In practice, however, it creates a loophole large enough for dangerous products to walk through.

Andrew Regan from BAMRA (the Buoyancy Aid Manufacturers and Retailers Association) has been involved in reviewing many of these products for compliance and has said, “What we’ve seen is a fundamental failure of Amazon’s compliance infrastructure. It’s incredibly easy for unscrupulous sellers to forge documents or provide irrelevant certifications. Chinese manufacturers are quoted as saying:

‘For EU & UK market, the main issue is seems everyone can print a CE mark on their products (wetsuits, boots, buoyancy aids etc), and customs really don't care about this. As so far, we did not hear any one in any case who been fined because CE logo issue. That's makes people here though CE is only kind of marking, and some factory may even do not know what CE is and just simply print it on the products.’

Amazon either doesn’t know the difference or worse, doesn’t care. The checking of documents should be outsourced to a third party, who know the standards inside and out. Simply checking that a testing body holds a certificate of compliance is simply not good enough and places young children in danger”

Formed with the encouragement of local government, BAMRA is an association of buoyancy aid manufacturers and resellers who have come together to campaign for fair compliance and take action against unsafe, non-compliant and illegal products being sold on the UK and EU marketplaces.  

Call for Accountability

It’s time for Amazon to be held accountable. Through Trading Standards the UK Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) has been notified of these violations, but enforcement action remains slow. Industry bodies, consumer rights groups, and responsible brands are now calling for:

• A level playing field for the enforcement of Testing Standards industry wide.
• Immediate removal of non-compliant buoyant aids from Amazon’s UK marketplace
• An overhaul of Amazon’s product safety and compliance checks for PPE
• Criminal investigations into the use of forged documentation
• Financial penalties for marketplaces profiting from illegal and dangerous goods

Parents deserve better. The safety of their children should never be compromised for the sake of profit or marketplace convenience. If Amazon wants to be trusted by UK consumers, it must clean up urgently its platform and start putting safety before sales.