Answers / one question
What evidence should we keep for the Accessibility Act?
Keep the Annex IV technical file and EU declaration for five years after each placing on the market, the Annex V service information for the life of the service, the Article 14 assessment for five years, and the supplier and customer traceability records for five years on each side. Add a complaint and corrective-action register.
Products: the file and the declaration
Article 7(2) requires the Annex IV technical documentation and the conformity assessment. Article 7(3) requires the technical documentation and the EU declaration to be kept for five years after each first supply of the product. The file must let a reviewer assess conformity and, where Article 14 is used, show why a requirement would cause a fundamental alteration or a disproportionate burden. Record which standards were used, wholly or partly, and the alternatives chosen where a standard was not applied.
Services: the information and the assessment
Article 13(2) requires the Annex V information to be public in written and oral form, in a manner accessible to persons with disabilities, and kept for as long as the service operates. Annex V requires a description of the service, an explanation of how it operates and a description of how the Annex I requirements are met. Where Article 14 is used, keep the assessment for five years from the last provision of the service and renew it on the Article 14(5) cycle.
The traceability records
Article 12 requires manufacturers, authorised representatives, importers and distributors to identify who supplied them and whom they supplied, and to be able to present that information for five years after being supplied and five years after supplying. Two clocks run in opposite directions, so an archive keyed only on the sale date will not answer the backward question.
The records an inspection will ask for first
Prepare one pack: the declaration, the technical file, the Article 14 assessment if any, the traceability extract, the complaint and corrective-action register and the authority correspondence. Article 19(2), Article 20 and Article 22 show the order in which an authority will use them. A pack that can be produced in an hour is worth more than a folder that takes a week to assemble.
The provisions behind this answer
Check it against the source
Read the provision at EUR-Lex, CELEX 32019L0882. This page states the rule in our own words; the instrument governs. Not legal advice; does not certify.