Status of the revision of the IEC standard

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Standard 60825-1.1 is the fundamental “horizontal” international laser product safety standard. IEC Technical Committee TC76 meets yearly to update this standard and prepare related reports and “vertical” standards. Although primarily a manufacturer’s system-safety, product performance standard, IEC 60825-1.1-1998 also has a section (Section 3) on User’s Information for the safe use of lasers. A significant change that took place with the second edition of this standard (1993) was inclusion of LEDs as if they were lasers. Unfortunately this fundamental change occurred without adequate review, and the major activity of IEC TC-76 during the last five meetings has related to attempts to correct problems arising from the inclusion of LEDs. Today, IEC TC-76 has prepared a draft standard to account more realistically for optically aided viewing: the new Class 1 and Class 2 provides classes based upon a worst-case risk analysis with the potential for optically aided viewing and a new Class 1M and 2M for products which may pose a hazard when viewed by optical aids. The vast majority of lasers—those with a small diameter collimated beam remain Class 1 or 2 as appropriate. Most US Class 3A lasers (without expanded beams) will become Class 3R. It is hoped that these changes will be adopted by the CDRH and ANSI, so that the minor differences in US and international standards will then largely disappear.