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Health and safety is nobody's favourite subject, but the equipment on a desk has more to do with it than most people think. A charger, a USB stick or a headset can start a fire, give someone a shock, hand a stranger control of a PC or leave a business explaining a data breach.
This page is our advice, not a policy: what to buy, what to avoid and why. It also explains why we supply OEM chargers, power leads and power supplies, and why we recommend the equipment we do.
Almost all IT equipment is made in the same handful of places, the best of it and the worst. What separates them is liability. A manufacturer whose charger injures or kills someone answers for it, to the regulators and under the Consumer Protection Act 1987, so compliance is built in from the start: independent testing and certification, components that meet the standards, years of research and development and the patents that protect it, and a recall when something goes wrong. That is where the cost goes, and the name on the box is a by-product of it.
No-name kit from online marketplaces has none of that behind it. It is made as cheaply as possible, to work at least some of the time: no safety design, no protection circuits, no testing, no certification, and no care for what happens once it is sold. Nobody will recall it, and nobody answers for it when it fails.
Counterfeit kit is worse, because it looks like the real thing. Anything that matters and carries a premium has a cheaper copy: disks, SSDs and USB sticks, laptop batteries, chargers and adapters, keyboards and mice, network cables and transceivers. The copy carries the brand, the packaging and often the hologram, without the parts or the testing. A counterfeit disk may hold less than its label says, or be a worn used drive relabelled as new, and a counterfeit battery may have no protection circuit at all.
So choosing OEM is only half of it; the other half is where it is bought. Online marketplaces mix stock from many sellers, and genuine and counterfeit can end up behind the same listing. Buy from the manufacturer, or from a reseller the manufacturer has authorised, and be wary of any price well below everyone else's, because that is usually the clue.
The saving is real, but it is small: a few pounds on a charger, a cable or a stick. The cost when it goes wrong is a fire, an injury or a breach, and sometimes an insurance claim that is harder to make because of it.
A USB port trusts whatever is plugged into it. A device can tell the PC it is a keyboard and type commands faster than anyone could watch, or present itself as a network adaptor and quietly route traffic through itself. It needs no password and no permission, and it is done in seconds. Anything that plugs into a USB port can, in the wrong hands, take full control of the PC.
That makes no-name USB devices more than a reliability problem. Sticks, drives, webcams, hubs and gadgets can arrive with software already on them, including remote access tools, firmware that can be rewritten, or companion apps that track their users and report back to servers nobody at your business has heard of. Some sticks also lie about their size, and silently lose whatever is written beyond their real capacity.
The attack can now be in the cable. An implant small enough to fit inside the plug turns an ordinary-looking charging cable into a device that types commands, or waits to be triggered remotely, and it still charges the phone. It cannot be told apart by looking at it. Use the cable that came with the equipment or one from its manufacturer, and treat a spare cable of unknown origin as you would a found USB stick.
A good USB stick or drive encrypts in hardware: nothing on it can be read without its PIN or password, and most wipe themselves after repeated wrong guesses. A cheap one does not, so whoever picks it up off the car park floor can read everything on it. If it held personal data, that can be a breach to report to the ICO within 72 hours. Look for hardware encryption validated to FIPS 140-3, or FIPS 140-2 on older models.
A stick left in a car park or reception is one of the oldest tricks there is, and it still works. Never plug in a device you did not buy; hand it to whoever looks after your IT. USB ports in stations, hotels and conference venues carry data as well as power, so charge from your own plug and charger, or through a charge-only adaptor.
Many cheap wireless keyboards and mice send keystrokes with weak encryption or none at all, and some will accept keystrokes injected from a short distance away, so a passer-by can type on your PC. Use wired, or a branded wireless set whose receiver firmware is kept up to date.
Smart plugs, cameras, doorbells and speakers bought for the office join the network and often report back to their maker. Since 29 April 2024, UK law has required them to ship without universal default passwords, and marketplace imports often ignore it. Keep them off the business network, or better still, out of the business.
GENAMS records every USB storage device connected to each machine, past and present. Where a business wants USB storage switched off altogether, we can do that by policy across its machines. It is all or nothing, so it suits some businesses better than others, and we will talk it through with you first.
Lithium batteries are everywhere on a desk now: laptops, phones, mice, keyboards, headsets, speakers and power banks. A good one is well protected. A cheap or damaged one can overheat and catch fire, and a lithium fire is fierce, spreads quickly and is hard to put out.
Chargers, cables and power supplies carry a risk of their own. Inside a counterfeit or sub-standard charger, the gap between the mains and the low voltage side you touch can be a fraction of what the standard requires, so it can overheat, catch fire or give someone an electric shock. That is why we supply OEM chargers, power leads and power supplies, made by the equipment's own manufacturer, wherever one is still made.
Then there is the insurance. Read the conditions of your buildings and contents cover: a fire traced to counterfeit or non-compliant equipment can complicate a claim, so the business deals with the fire first and then with its insurer.
The employer's duty does not stop at the equipment the business chose. Under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, an employer must, so far as is reasonably practicable, prevent danger from electrical equipment used at work. In practice that means taking all reasonable steps to protect people, including from their own choices, and it makes no difference who bought the counterfeit charger: the business, the employee, or the employee because the business suggested it.
Most businesses know that a cable trailing across the floor is a claim waiting to happen if someone trips over it. Fewer see that a counterfeit cable which gives someone a shock, so that they fall badly, is the same claim and a worse one, and where that cable came from is one of the first questions the other side will ask.
Worst of all are the cases nobody walks away from. A charger handed out at work, taken home, that sets fire to the house with the family inside. A cheap power lead with unsleeved pins and the wrong fuse, or none, in a sub-standard socket without shutters, that leaves someone with lasting nerve damage in their arm. These are life-changing claims, the kind an insurer looks at very hard, and if it disputes cover, or pays and then seeks to recover its costs, the business can be paying for years.
The practical answer is a clear rule on personal electrical equipment, a visual check of anything allowed in, and genuine chargers and leads at every desk, so nobody needs to bring their own.
When someone asks where it came from, the strongest answer is also the simplest: we bought it from the manufacturer's authorised distributor, and here are their details. It does not take the duty away, but deliberately buying verified OEM equipment through an authorised channel is, in most cases, exactly what taking all reasonable steps looks like. It also points the claim for the defect itself at the right party, because under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 a supplier who can name the producer passes that liability back to it. Nobody can give that answer about a charger from a marketplace seller who has since disappeared, so keep the invoices.
Stop using it and unplug it. Do not charge it, press it or try to remove the battery. If it is safe to, move it away from anything that burns, and raise a ticket on the HelpDesk.
E-bikes, e-scooters, vapes and power banks are charged in offices every day, and they have nothing to do with IT. They are the lithium fire risk most offices actually face. Agree where they may be charged, keep them out of escape routes, and never leave them charging overnight. Rechargeable vapes plugged into laptop USB ports are best stopped altogether.
Headsets, mice and keyboards are often left charging under desks overnight and over the weekend, on carpet and among paper. Charge them during the day, on a hard surface, where someone will notice if something goes wrong.
Extension leads plugged into extension leads, a heater or kettle on the same block as the PCs, and a tangle of cable under the desk that is kicked every day. An extension lead is limited to 13 amps in total, however many sockets it has. Use one lead per wall socket, keep heaters and kettles on their own, and replace any lead that is warm, cracked or scorched.
Damaged and worn-out lithium batteries never go in general waste: they start fires in bins, bin lorries and recycling depots. Old equipment goes to a licensed recycler under the WEEE Regulations, and any disk, SSD or stick inside it is wiped or destroyed first.
Mains power is less clean than it looks. Brief dips, spikes and electrical noise from lifts, motors and the building next door wear electronics out and corrupt data, and a power cut takes down anything that was halfway through writing to disk.
Lightning does not need to hit the building. A strike nearby can send a surge in on the mains and on any copper line, telephone and data cables included, and it will find the equipment on the end of them.
The UPSs we supply do three jobs. They keep equipment running through a power cut long enough to shut down cleanly, they condition the power so that what reaches the equipment is steady, and they carry surge protection with lightning arresters. A UPS protects what is plugged into it; it does not replace surge protection in the building's own wiring, which is a matter for your electrician.
Most people spend the working day at a screen, keyboard and mouse, and the equipment matters. Choose screens that adjust for height and tilt, with an anti-glare finish, keyboards separate from the screen, and mice that fit the hand of the person using them. Branded equipment is designed and tested for a full working day; no-name equipment rarely is.
Laptop users working at a desk all day should have a separate screen, keyboard and mouse, or at the very least a stand and a separate keyboard. Working hunched over a laptop on a kitchen table is how the aches start.
Under the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992, assessing each workstation is the employer's duty, including for people who work from home, and employers must arrange an eye test for screen users who ask for one. We recommend, supply and set up the equipment; we do not assess workstations, and nothing on this page replaces that assessment.
A headset is worn for most of the working day. For anyone on the phones, that is 40 hours a week against the side of the head, every week, for years. That is why we recommend wired headsets, and the recommendation rests on several grounds, not one.
Exposure limits for radio equipment are set by power, and branded DECT and Bluetooth headsets sit well within them. Our concern is duration. A wireless headset is a transmitter worn against the head all day, every day, and the effects of that kind of long, close exposure are still being studied. In our view it is a risk too far, when a wired headset does the job as well or better.
No-name wireless headsets add a further unknown. Nobody has tested them against the Radio Equipment Regulations 2017, so nobody knows what they actually emit, or at what power.
For anyone on the phones all day, choose one with acoustic shock protection, which cuts a sudden loud noise on the line before it reaches the ear.
No. It is our advice, drawn from what we see in the field, and it explains why we supply and recommend the equipment we do. Your duties as an employer remain yours, and nothing here replaces your own risk assessment or professional advice.
No. Assessing each workstation is the employer's duty under the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992. We supply and set up the equipment an assessment calls for, and we are happy to advise on it.
Because a charger, power lead or power supply sits between the mains and both the equipment and the person using it. One made by the equipment's own manufacturer has been designed and tested for it, and a no-name one has not. The saving is a few pounds, and the risk is a fire or a shock. The only exception is equipment so old that its manufacturer no longer makes one, and then we buy from a reputable supplier and check it before it goes out.
Largely, yes. An employer must, so far as is reasonably practicable, prevent danger from electrical equipment used at work, whoever owns it and whoever bought it, and the duty covers colleagues and visitors as well as the employee. Set a clear rule on personal electrical equipment, check anything you allow in, and provide genuine chargers so nobody needs to bring their own.
Often you cannot, which is the point of a good counterfeit: the packaging, labels and holograms are copied too. The reliable protection is where it is bought, from the manufacturer or a reseller it has authorised. A price well below the rest of the market is the usual warning sign. If you are unsure about something you already have, ask us.
Yes. On machines under GENAMS, USB storage can be switched off by policy. It is all or nothing, so it suits some businesses better than others. GENAMS also records every USB storage device connected to each machine, past and present, whether or not it is switched off.
A headset is worn for most of the working day. A wired one has no battery to catch fire, no radio link to intercept and no transmitter against the head for 40 hours a week. It also sounds better and never runs flat in the middle of a call.
Stop using the device and unplug it. Do not charge it, press it or try to remove the battery. If it is safe to do so, move it away from anything that burns, and raise a ticket on the HelpDesk.