ECHA soon to automatically disseminate information from registration dossiers

News Alert
ECHA/NA/10/59
Media enquiries: ECHA Press

Over the last few months, ECHA has made available manuals and an IT tool to enable companies to prepare dossiers that can automatically be made public on the internet without revealing confidential business information. ECHA will therefore no longer communicate with companies before making information on their substance available on its website.

Helsinki, 18 October 2010 - Under the previous system ECHA used to contact registrants before publishing information from their registration dossier. These direct contacts were deemed necessary, as ECHA became aware that registrants may face difficulties in determining exactly which fields of the IUCLID dossier would be made publicly available (e.g. information claimed confidential was accidentally also contained in non-confidential parts of the IUCLID dossier). However, with the availability of appropriate tools to prevent this type of mistakes, ECHA no longer sees a need for these contacts.

In accordance with a decision of the Executive Director, information from registration dossiers submitted from 1 December 2010 or updated after this date will be published on ECHA's website without further communication with the registrant. Registrants are advised – before submitting their registration dossier – to use the IUCLID dissemination plugin, which enables companies to verify which information from their IUCLID dossier will be disseminated.

Information from dossiers submitted before 1 December 2010 will be automatically added to the Dissemination Portal as of 1 March 2011. In these cases also no individual communication will take place with the registrants concerned before publication. However, companies still have the possibility to use the dissemination plugin and update their dossier before this date.

Exceptions to these arrangements are dossiers containing testing proposals. ECHA aims to publish information from these dossiers as soon as possible after they have been accepted as complete, to ensure that a maximum amount of scientifically valid information on the substance can be gathered during the public consultation. In addition, information from dossiers that have already been reviewed or updated by registrants with a view to publication will also be made available as soon as possible.

ECHA expects that these arrangements will increase the efficiency of the dissemination procedure, making sure that the public gains access to the information from registration dossiers as quickly as possible.