Digital Services Act and Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act introduced
The Digital Services Act (DDG) and the Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act (TDDDG) have been in force since May 14, 2024. What adjustments website operators must now make.
The Digital Services Act adapts the national regulations at federal and state level to the new European legal requirements made necessary by the Digital Services Act (DSA).
These are initially linguistic adjustments. In line with the new EU requirements, "telemedia services" will be renamed "digital services" in Germany.
- The Telemedia Act (TMG) becomes the Digital Services Act (DDG).
- The Telecommunications Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDSG) becomes the Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act (TDDDG).
Change in imprint obligation
However, the renaming also entails an important change for website operators: until the introduction of the Digital Services Act, the obligation to provide an imprint on the website resulted from Section 5 TMG. With the entry into force of the Digital Services Act, the imprint obligation is regulated in Section 5 DDG.
Website operators should act now and check their legal notice!
If it contains a reference to Section 5 TMG, this should be changed. Either to a reference to Section 5 DDG or even better: to dispense with the reference altogether. This is because there is no legal obligation to state the legal standard in the legal notice. In this way, the risk of stating an incorrect legal standard in the legal notice can also be excluded in the event of future amendments to the law.
In addition, all other web content, databases and document templates should be checked for references to the German Telemedia Act (TMG) and the German Telecommunications Telemedia Data Protection Act (TTDSG) and the relevant sections should be adapted to the German Digital Services Act (DDG) and the German Telecommunications Digital Services Data Protection Act (TDDDG).