I have the feeling that you are talking about european style socket with shallower than normal recess, ie. CEE 7/1. These sockets are sometimes used in Benelux countries for RCD protected circuits without PE, and should only be used for Class II devices which usually have CEE 7/16 “EuroPlug” with isolation sleeves and thus there is nothing to touch. On the other hand nothing prevents you from plugging essentially any other european plug in there which then becomes safety issue both because of the exposed live pins when (un)plugging and missing grounding. Similar sockets were (are?) also used in Russia.
This is probably the only case when CEE-style socket is not designed such that it is safe to use with any CEE-style plug that mechanically fits. In general I view the system as better design than BS 1363, because it solves the relevant safety issuess without overengineering and with reasonable degree of backward compatibility.
Re:The next generation of wall chargers
by _Microft on Sunday December 01, 2019 @06:28PM
(#21678530)
This almost sounds like an outlet without the cover installed?
Outlets next to each other, still without cover: https://www.entscheider.com/elektriker-und-elektroniker/wp-c...
Maybe even like this (seems to be older): https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schuko#/media/Datei:Doppelstec...
Definitely not normal what you describe there. I'm glad you were cautious.
Perhaps there's a hidden mechanism that enables power after insertion? There was no switch for each outlet. I no longer remember if there was a switch for the pair of them but I don't think so as I was worried about getting shocked. This was in a Belgian hotel I visited a few years ago. Sorry I didn't take a picture.