Reasonably foreseeable use

Reasonably foreseeable use is the use of a product that is not necessarily its intended purpose and still has to be expected by the manufacturer. The Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) defines it in Article 3(24) and hangs two consequences on it: it helps decide whether a product falls within scope at all, and it is mandatory content of the cybersecurity risk assessment.

The definition has two building blocks. The first draws a boundary: the use is “not necessarily” the Intended purpose the manufacturer supplied in the instructions for use, promotional or sales materials, statements and technical documentation. The second names the sources it is likely to result from: reasonably foreseeable human behaviour, technical operations, or interactions.

Everything turns on “not necessarily”. The term does not require any contrast with the intended purpose. A foreseeable use may coincide with it, go beyond it, or sit alongside it. Use that is not in accordance with the intended purpose leads to Article 3(25) instead: it is reasonably foreseeable misuse where it may result from reasonably foreseeable human behaviour or interaction with other systems.

It opens the scope

Under Article 2(1) the CRA applies to products with digital elements made available on the market, the intended purpose or reasonably foreseeable use of which includes a direct or indirect logical or physical Data connection to a device or network.

The small word “or” carries the whole decision. A device whose manual says nothing about connectivity but which ships with a radio interface or a maintenance port meets that criterion as soon as use of that interface is to be expected. The scoping question therefore runs through what the product technically permits and what users will predictably do with it, not through the product description. Whether the product ends up covered then still turns on the exclusions in Article 2(2) to (7).

Mandatory content of the risk assessment

Article 13(3) sets out what the cybersecurity risk assessment must cover at minimum: an analysis of cybersecurity risks based on the intended purpose and reasonably foreseeable use, as well as the conditions of use, such as the operational environment or the assets to be protected, taking the expected time in use into account. Foreseeable use ranks there on equal footing with the intended purpose.

The German text is worth a glance at this point. It omits the conditions of use that the English version names alongside intended purpose and foreseeable use. Anyone assessing the operating environment anyway is unaffected by the discrepancy.

The assessment is not a one-off exercise. It is documented and updated as appropriate during the support period. When the product is placed on the market, Article 13(4) puts it into the Technical documentation, where Annex VII, point 3 lists it explicitly.

The breadth of the obligations follows from it. The security requirements in Annex I, Part I, point 2 apply only “where applicable”, and what applies comes out of the risk assessment. Drawing foreseeable use narrowly therefore shrinks the set of those Essential cybersecurity requirements a manufacturer treats as applicable. That is exactly why Article 13(4) requires a clear justification in that same technical documentation wherever certain essential cybersecurity requirements are not applicable.

A condition of market access

Article 6(a) permits a product to be made available on the market only where it meets the essential cybersecurity requirements in Annex I, Part I, provided it is properly installed, maintained, used for its intended purpose or under conditions which can reasonably be foreseen, and, where applicable, the necessary security updates have been installed.

The provision cuts both ways. A narrowly drafted intended purpose gives no relief, because the product has to hold up under foreseeable conditions too. Conversely, attribution stops where the conditions stop being foreseeable. Replacing the firmware with a third-party build and then running the device in an environment nobody could have anticipated falls outside that frame.

What the CRA leaves open

When a use counts as “reasonably” foreseeable is not something the Regulation states. It offers neither criteria nor examples, and the recitals do not develop the term either. Article 26(2)(a) does require any Commission guidance to address the scope of the Regulation, but the focus there is on remote data processing solutions and free and open-source software.

Until then the judgement sits with the manufacturer, and it needs a rationale. What makes it defensible is material that already exists: support tickets, integration requests from customers, forum threads, and the plain question of which interfaces a device leaves open as shipped.