World Anti-Counterfeiting Week – November 16-20 – is focused this year on the underestimation globally of health and safety risks resulting from product counterfeiting.

Specialists in intellectual property crime and counterfeiting will contribute to Underwriter Laboratories’ Be Safe Buy Real campaign with social media posts, interviews, articles and graphics to raise consumer awareness of the risks of counterfeiting.

The campaign’s launch material cites the example of the health risks posed by counterfeit Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to health care professionals working to address the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Consumer skepticism about counterfeiting was a key finding in a 2019 Consumers Council of Canada research report on the topic. The report found that consumers doubt many of the established facts about the size and economic impact of counterfeit and pirated goods. It concluded consumers find it difficult to identify the perils of counterfeit goods and that industry intellectual property protection campaigns struggle to gain effectiveness.

In multiple focus group sessions, consumers were presented with reliably sourced statistics on health and safety issues, as well as monetary and job loss and the involvement of organized-crime. The worldwide sale of an estimated US$75 billion of counterfeit medicines was cited as an example health and safety risk.

Yet focus group participants commonly disputed these facts to such an extent that researchers were “surprised by the degree of skepticism from focus group members, who questioned the motives for and accuracy of the information.”

A second 2019 Consumers Council of Canada research report found that Canadian regulators had reduced and withdrawn from pro-active inspections, and that the public lacked confidence in the effectiveness of government complaint handling about online transactions.