The Policy Guideline on Consumer Protection for the Elderly was approved by the Consumer Protection Committee (CPC) under the Executive Yuan on January 21, 2015. The policy guideline focused on the livelihood of elderly consumers and related issues, establishing four major policy objectives and raising 13 strategies to promote. It is meant to guide central and local authorities to advance their tasks for elderly consumer protection and to enhance the quality of life of elderly consumers.
The Department of Consumer Protection (DCP) under the Executive Yuan has stated that with the advent of the nation’s growing elderly society, consideration should be given since the elderly is classified as disadvantaged consumers, and as such it is imperative that the consumer rights and interests of the elderly be strengthened and safeguarded, and that their future consumer needs be met. Moreover, in view of prior policies becoming outdated, this policy guidance therefore conformed with domestic and international development trends concerning issues related to elderly consumers.
This policy guidance established four major policy objectives and correspondingly put forth thirteen concrete promotion strategies (within each strategy there is also a separate list of sub-strategies), as seen below:
1. Satisfy the livelihood requirements of elderly consumers, and promote their livelihood with convenience and dignity (4 strategies). This includes encouraging business operators to develop and provide goods and services that are safe, convenient, environmentally-friendly and affordable for the elderly, and so forth.
2. Avoid harming elderly consumers, and safeguard their consumer rights as well as the quality of their livelihood (3 strategies). This includes increasing elderly consumers’ awareness and preventing consumer fraud and malfeasance against the elderly, and so forth.
3. Provide the elderly with consumer-friendly consultation and relief services while helping them to become more willing to use such services (2 strategies). This includes upgrading the consumer-friendly consultation and relief services that competent authorities and business operators should provide for the elderly, and so forth.
4. Reinforce the efficiency of the government’s consumer protection for the elderly in order to improve the protection of their consumer rights and interests (4 strategies). This includes collecting information on cases involving injuries to elderly consumers in order to ascertain the causes of such incidents and to develop prevention strategies that will help avoid the recurrence of similar events, and so forth.
The DCP has officially requested that the various competent authorities develop and carry out concrete measures and the practical execution of this policy guidance in accordance with its objectives and strategies. In addition, the DCP’s revisions to the 2017-2019 Consumer Protection Plan will also include relevant contents so as to bring the concepts of the policy guidance into practice.