About PlainRecalls

Our Data Sources

PlainRecalls aggregates recall records from three federal agencies, each responsible for a distinct product category. Together, they cover virtually every consumer product sold in the United States.

Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

The FDA oversees recalls of food products, medications, medical devices, cosmetics, dietary supplements, and tobacco products. FDA recall data comes from the openFDA enforcement reports API, which publishes enforcement actions including voluntary recalls, mandatory recalls, and market withdrawals. The FDA handles the largest volume of recall events by count.

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

The CPSC covers household products, toys, electronics, furniture, clothing, and sporting goods — essentially anything that is not food, drugs, or vehicles. Recall data comes from the CPSC Recalls API, which includes recall descriptions, hazard classifications, remedy types, and affected product details. CPSC processes approximately 300–400 consumer product recalls per year.

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)

NHTSA manages recalls for cars, trucks, motorcycles, tires, car seats, and motor vehicle equipment. Data comes from the NHTSA Recalls API. NHTSA issues around 800–1,000 vehicle recall campaigns annually, often affecting tens of millions of individual vehicles.

How We Process the Data

We download recall records from each agency's public API or data feed and process them through the following steps:

• Normalization: Each agency uses different field names, date formats, severity classifications, and product categorization schemes. We normalize these into a consistent structure so that a food recall from the FDA and a vehicle recall from NHTSA can appear in the same search results with comparable metadata.
• Severity mapping: FDA uses Class I/II/III, CPSC uses hazard descriptions, and NHTSA uses different terminology. We map all of these into a unified severity system while preserving the original agency classification for reference.
• Deduplication: Agencies occasionally issue updates or amendments to existing recalls. We track recall identifiers to avoid duplicate entries while preserving the most current information.
• Search indexing: Records are indexed by product name, company, agency, category, severity, and date — enabling full-text search across all agencies simultaneously.

No data is editorialized, filtered, or ranked by any criteria other than the agency's own classification. We present the government's records directly.

Data Currency

PlainRecalls currently contains recall records spanning multiple decades of federal enforcement actions. The database includes both historical and recent recalls. We pull new data from agency APIs on a regular schedule to capture newly announced recalls.

Agency publication timelines vary: the FDA typically posts enforcement actions within days of a recall announcement, CPSC publishes recall notices as they are finalized, and NHTSA posts campaigns as manufacturers file their defect reports. We update PlainRecalls to incorporate new records as they become available from each source.

Editorial Independence & How Content Is Produced

PlainRecalls combines two kinds of content. The recall records are ingested programmatically from official agency APIs (FDA, CPSC, NHTSA) into a normalized schema and presented as published by the issuing agency. The guides, methodology, and editorial commentary are written and reviewed by the PlainRecalls editorial team, operating under Kiznis Studio, which is responsible for editorial standards, methodology, and corrections.

We do not accept payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from manufacturers, operators, or any transportation/product entity. Our only revenue source is contextual display advertising served by Google AdSense — advertisers do not influence which entities we cover or how we present data, and they do not receive preferential placement.

Limitations & Disclaimers

PlainRecalls is an informational resource. Recall data should be one factor in your product safety decisions — always verify critical details with the issuing agency before taking action.

• Not a real-time alert system: There is an inherent delay between when an agency announces a recall and when it appears in our database. For the most urgent safety alerts, monitor agency websites directly.
• Coverage depends on agency reporting: We can only display recalls that agencies have officially published. Some hazards may be under investigation but not yet subject to a formal recall.
• Historical records may be incomplete: Older recalls, particularly those predating digital record-keeping, may have less detailed information or missing fields.
• Not affiliated with any government agency: PlainRecalls is an independent data portal. We do not issue recalls, determine severity, or process remedy claims.

PlainRecalls does not provide legal or professional safety advice. Consult the relevant federal agency or a qualified professional before making decisions based on recall data.

Contact

Questions, corrections, or feedback? Email us at hello@plainrecalls.com.

We welcome:

• Questions about data sources or methodology
• Reports of missing or incorrect recall records
• Suggestions for additional features or data sources
• Media and research inquiries

PlainRecalls is published by ", a data intelligence company that builds free, public-interest data portals.