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Is your substance identity information up-to-date?

ECHA/NA/13/44

The European Chemicals Agency has conducted an IT-based screening on required information elements for substance identity of all REACH registrations. Registrants whose dossiers are picked up by the screening will receive a letter from ECHA in the first quarter of 2014 giving advice on how to address the identified shortcomings found in their dossier(s). The aim is to help industry to proactively improve the quality of their dossiers before ECHA initiates follow up actions such as compliance check.

Helsinki, 11 December 2013 – Correct and consistent substance identification is the foundation of REACH. At the same time, substance identification has been a frequent shortcoming in dossier evaluation during previous years as reported in the annual progress reports on evaluation under REACH. Substance identity is also an obligation for each registrant and cannot be left to the lead of the substance information exchange forum (SIEF).

ECHA has used the experience gained from its evaluation activities to develop IT screening methods to identify registrations with common shortcomings in substance identity information. The outcome of the screening will be communicated to companies through information letters, which give them an opportunity to spontaneously update their dossiers before the Agency starts regulatory action.These letters list the issues found in each dossier and include instructions on how to address them. Registrants will be invited to update their dossiers accordingly by a pre-set target date.

As additional support, ECHA will update the Dossier Quality Assistant tool in early 2014 with more substance identity-related rules. Companies are recommended to use the tool before submitting the updates of their dossiers with the improved information to ECHA.

A webinar will be organised in the spring of 2014 to explain the common shortcomings in detail and how to satisfactorily address these. During the webinar, registrants can raise further questions and get answers from ECHA's experts.