The TSA lock has become standard for suitcases, yet the same approach has not been applied to power banks. Each country and airline has its own rules regarding power banks. Certification is nearly free, but the real obstacle is the multitude of standards. A single label, like the TSA lock, is needed. As phones become more integrated into daily lives, they become multifunctional, multi-screen devices with larger screens. However, battery life decreases. As a result, there is an object that almost everyone carries in their bag today, which may be tolerated, checked, taped, confiscated, or even prevent boarding, depending on the airport from which you depart. It's the same object. The same flight. The same day. What changes? The airline or the departure airport. Why is my power bank accepted in Paris but not in Tokyo? This is discrimination. Yet, the external battery has become, in eighteen months, the most regulated item in your pocket. South Korea since February: charging in flight is prohibited, isolated charging stations with adhesive tape, batteries must be within reach and never in the baggage compartment. Japan since April: a maximum of two units per passenger. Hong Kong, following a fire on a Hong Kong Airlines flight. China since the summer of 2025: no 3C marking printed on the casing, no boarding allowed. This is the aviation safety regulations of the country from which you depart. In addition to these, there are rules specific to a dozen airlines, each of which has added its own variations. Catastrophic scenario. You depart from Shanghai on Lufthansa with your Chinese 3C battery. You pass security, board the plane, and on board they can take it from you: the airline has its own rules. Let's say it passes. You arrive in Frankfurt, transiting to Zurich. New check, new rule: the 3C marking has no value here; it's the Wh inscription that must be readable. And even in passing, Swiss can apply different rules than Lufthansa — despite both belonging to the same group. It's illogical. I understand the need for safety, but I would like to understand the measure. Especially since these products are evolving: some batteries now include AI to manage charging and recharging, power your scooter or PC, and exceed $200. So, if we could avoid having it confiscated on every flight. Everyone describes this story as a safety issue. That's not false. It's just incomplete — and especially, it says nothing about what is actually happening in the chain. What the Chinese recall from June 2025 reveals. ROMOSS recalls 490,000 batteries. Anker recalls 710,000. More than a million units in a few days, from two of the largest global brands in this category. The cause is not a design defect. These are not low-cost brands that may have hidden a manufacturing defect. It traces back to a cell supplier, Apex (Wuxi), whose factory in Jiangxi replaced the separator material without authorization. An internal component changed upstream, invisible at purchase, invisible during quality control at the production line, revealed by insulation faults and fires. On June 30, the 3C certifications of Apex were suspended. Apex also supplied Xiaomi, UGREEN, and Baseus. Note the mechanism, because this is the real issue: the products were certified. The certification was based on a test dossier validated at a certain point in time. The batch that caught fire had little to do with this dossier. This is the structural limit of any standard: it certifies a sample, not the entire production. The cost is not the barrier. I am regularly told that certification is what prevents this category from being cleaned up. It is a comfortable argument. It is false, and I can say that because I source this category. On a real production run, the cost of certification behaves like a CE marking: it amortizes, then it is forgotten. It weighs a fraction of what a packaging change weighs per unit. And the price difference between a traceable certified cell and an anonymous cell is counted in cents per battery. A few cents. No one gives up safety for a few cents. That's not the calculation made. The real calculation is this: China wants the 3C. Japan wants the PSE. South Korea wants the KC. Europe wants the CE — a standard that does not guarantee in-flight transport. The United States has its own path. Each marking is a dossier, a laboratory, a delay, a bill. Therefore, the question that a factory poses to its client is not "can I be compliant." It is: "for which market do I have the right to be compliant this quarter." This is not a safety issue. It is a signature issue. Five authorities demand the same proof and refuse to recognize that of the neighbor. The precedent of the TSA lock. What makes me furious is that we know how to do it. We have already seen standards adopted everywhere, starting with aviation. And we have already solved exactly this problem on an object as mundane as a suitcase lock. Locks were cut at every check. Then a marking appeared on the casing. The traveler could see it in the display before purchasing, without understanding anything about the lock mechanism. In two seasons, the entire category realigned itself on this. The marking became a purchase criterion before becoming a safety criterion — and precisely for this reason, it worked. This is what is missing from the external battery. Serious certifications already exist: UN38.3 for transport, IEC 62133 for the cell, the Wh printed somewhere on the casing. They are illegible, invisible at purchase, and intended for logistics professionals. None of them speak to the passenger who, at 6 a.m., holds their battery above a trash can, wondering if they can board. The Chinese 3C is the first truly consumer-facing marking in this category. A logo on the casing that determines boarding. And it is ironic to measure: it is the country that produces the overwhelming majority of the world's batteries — and thus mechanically also produces the majority of defective batteries — that has imposed the first mandatory visible marking. Not Europe. Not the FAA. The manufacturer, not the importer. What a marking will not solve. I will not claim that a global label solves everything, because I have seen these factories. The TSA lock was copied in a few months. A marking without production audit is just decoration. And the Apex case precisely shows the gap: the certificate was valid, but the chain had moved underneath. A label that does not re-verify at the batch level will reproduce exactly the same fire, with a logo on it. What a common marking would change, however, is the structure of the market. Today, selection is made on price. Tomorrow, it will be made on traceability: the ability to prove the origin of the cells and to provide test reports. It is not the same industry. Many actors who have been doing well in this category for fifteen years will not pass through this door — not because their product is bad, but because they have never had to document where it came from. It is a change in nature. For fifteen years, the mobile accessory has thrived because no one regulated it. This period is closing. The real question. Regulation is not arriving because the product has become dangerous. It is arriving because no one has agreed on who guarantees it. As long as this question remains open, we keep what we have: a dozen incompatible national rules, a passenger who alone decides at the security checkpoint, and a category that continues to fight on the only parameter that should no longer be negotiable. A few cents per battery. It is not a money problem. It is an agreement problem.