The iPhone 12 might have become a health hazard to the public.
Belgium's junior minister for the digital economy recently asked the IBPT-BIPT to analyze the potential health risks linked to the radiation iPhone 12s allegedly emitted after France halted its sales.
The IBPT-BIPT is the federal regulatory body responsible for regulating the electronic communications market in Belgium's bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, among other responsibilities, per its About page.
Potential Health Hazards
Mathieu Michel, Belgium's junior minister for the digital economy, is looking into the potential health hazard Apple's iPhone 12 presents. According to a report from Reuters, he has recently asked the IBPT-BIPT to analyze the potential health risks linked to the radiation the iPhone 12 emits.
This investigation follows France's order to halt the smartphone's sales due to breaches of radiation exposure limits. The Associated Press' report mentioned that the county's government agency that manages wireless communications frequencies found that the iPhone 12 failed one of the tests for electromagnetic waves capable of being absorbed by the body.
L'@anfr a constaté que l'iPhone 12 émettait un niveau d'ondes légèrement supérieur au seuil autorisé.
— Jean-Noël Barrot (@jnbarrot) September 13, 2023
Ce niveau est plus de 10 fois inférieur au niveau auquel il pourrait y avoir un risque pour la santé.
Mais la règle, c'est la règle : Apple doit se mettre en conformité. pic.twitter.com/nnTaF9taA0
The government agency in question didn't reveal why the three-year-old smartphone failed the test, nor why or how it chose the iPhone 12 to test. However, France's digital minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, said that the phone's radiation levels are still much too low for scientific studies to consider it harmful to users.
He said in a post on X.com that the iPhone 12 was emitting radiation levels "slightly above" the allowed threshold but with levels more than ten times lower than the one at which there could be a health risk.
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He also mentioned that the agency in question acknowledges that its tests don't reflect typical phone use. As such, the average iPhone 12 user shouldn't worry about any health hazard affecting them due to their use of the device.
Despite the French digital minister's statement, Michel wants to test the device for high radiation emissions to guarantee the safety of his country's citizens. As such, he had asked the IBPT-BIPT to analyze the potential danger the iPhone 12 poses, along with devices made by other producers, though the latter part may come at a later stage.
Apple, for its part, guaranteed that the iPhone 12 is safe for public use. The company explained on Sept. 13 that multiple international bodies certified the iPhone 12 as a device compliant with global radiation standards.
How Much IS Too Much?
The US' National Cancer Institute (NCI) mentioned in a study that cell phones and smartphones emit radiation in the radiofrequency (RF) region of the electromagnetic spectrum. According to the CDC, this frequency allows them to send signals to communicate with other devices.
While the CDC doesn't know for sure if RF radiation from smartphones can cause health problems after some time, the International Agency for Research on Cancer classified RF radiation as a "possible human carcinogen - a cancer-causing agent. Thankfully, the NCI mentioned that cellphone/smartphone use doesn't cause brain or other kinds of cancer in humans and the radio frequencies are too low to damage DNA, per USA Today.
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