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Chapter III – Due diligence obligations for a transparent and safe online environment (Art. 11-48)

Art. 11 DSA - Points of contact for Member States’ authorities, the Commission and the Board arrow_right_alt

Art. 12 DSA - Points of contact for recipients of the service arrow_right_alt

Art. 13 DSA - Legal representatives arrow_right_alt

Art. 14 DSA - Terms and conditions arrow_right_alt

Art. 15 DSA - Transparency reporting obligations for providers of intermediary services arrow_right_alt

Art. 16 DSA - Notice and action mechanisms arrow_right_alt

  1. Providers of hosting services shall put mechanisms in place to allow any individual or entity to notify them of the presence on their service of specific items of information that the individual or entity considers to be illegal content. Those mechanisms shall be easy to access and user-friendly, and shall allow for the submission of notices exclusively by electronic means.
  2. The mechanisms referred to in paragraph 1 shall be such as to facilitate the submission of sufficiently precise and adequately substantiated notices. To that end, the providers of hosting services shall take the necessary measures to enable and to facilitate the submission of notices containing all of the following elements:
    1. a sufficiently substantiated explanation of the reasons why the individual or entity alleges the information in question to be illegal content;
    2. a clear indication of the exact electronic location of that information, such as the exact URL or URLs, and, where necessary, additional information enabling the identification of the illegal content adapted to the type of content and to the specific type of hosting service;
    3. the name and email address of the individual or entity submitting the notice, except in the case of information considered to involve one of the offences referred to in Articles 3 to 7 of Directive 2011/93/EU;
    4. a statement confirming the bona fide belief of the individual or entity submitting the notice that the information and allegations contained therein are accurate and complete.
  3. Notices referred to in this Article shall be considered to give rise to actual knowledge or awareness for the purposes of Article 6 in respect of the specific item of information concerned where they allow a diligent provider of hosting services to identify the illegality of the relevant activity or information without a detailed legal examination.
  4. Where the notice contains the electronic contact information of the individual or entity that submitted it, the provider of hosting services shall, without undue delay, send a confirmation of receipt of the notice to that individual or entity.
  5. The provider shall also, without undue delay, notify that individual or entity of its decision in respect of the information to which the notice relates, providing information on the possibilities for redress in respect of that decision.
  6. Providers of hosting services shall process any notices that they receive under the mechanisms referred to in paragraph 1 and take their decisions in respect of the information to which the notices relate, in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary and objective manner. Where they use automated means for that processing or decision-making, they shall include information on such use in the notification referred to in paragraph 5.
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Recital 50

Providers of hosting services play a particularly important role in tackling illegal content online, as they store information provided by and at the request of the recipients of the service and typically give other recipients access thereto, sometimes on a large scale. It is important that all providers of hosting services, regardless of their size, put in place easily accessible and user-friendly notice and action mechanisms that facilitate the notification of specific items of information that the notifying party considers to be illegal content to the provider of hosting services concerned (‘notice’), pursuant to which that provider can decide whether or not it agrees with that assessment and wishes to remove or disable access to that content (‘action’). Such mechanisms should be clearly identifiable, located close to the information in question and at least as easy to find and use as notification mechanisms for content that violates the terms and conditions of the hosting service provider. Provided the requirements on notices are met, it should be possible for individuals or entities to notify multiple specific items of allegedly illegal content through a single notice in order to ensure the effective operation of notice and action mechanisms. The notification mechanism should allow, but not require, the identification of the individual or the entity submitting a notice. For some types of items of information notified, the identity of the individual or the entity submitting a notice might be necessary to determine whether the information in question constitutes illegal content, as alleged. The obligation to put in place notice and action mechanisms should apply, for instance, to file storage and sharing services, web hosting services, advertising servers and paste bins, in so far as they qualify as hosting services covered by this Regulation.

Recital 51

Having regard to the need to take due account of the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Charter of all parties concerned, any action taken by a provider of hosting services pursuant to receiving a notice should be strictly targeted, in the sense that it should serve to remove or disable access to the specific items of information considered to constitute illegal content, without unduly affecting the freedom of expression and of information of recipients of the service. Notices should therefore, as a general rule, be directed to the providers of hosting services that can reasonably be expected to have the technical and operational ability to act against such specific items. The providers of hosting services who receive a notice for which they cannot, for technical or operational reasons, remove the specific item of information should inform the person or entity who submitted the notice.

Recital 52

The rules on such notice and action mechanisms should be harmonised at Union level, so as to provide for the timely, diligent and non-arbitrary processing of notices on the basis of rules that are uniform, transparent and clear and that provide for robust safeguards to protect the right and legitimate interests of all affected parties, in particular their fundamental rights guaranteed by the Charter, irrespective of the Member State in which those parties are established or reside and of the field of law at issue. Those fundamental rights include but are not limited to: for the recipients of the service, the right to freedom of expression and of information, the right to respect for private and family life, the right to protection of personal data, the right to non-discrimination and the right to an effective remedy; for the service providers, the freedom to conduct a business, including the freedom of contract; for parties affected by illegal content, the right to human dignity, the rights of the child, the right to protection of property, including intellectual property, and the right to non-discrimination. Providers of hosting services should act upon notices in a timely manner, in particular by taking into account the type of illegal content being notified and the urgency of taking action. For instance, such providers can be expected to act without delay when allegedly illegal content involving a threat to life or safety of persons is being notified. The provider of hosting services should inform the individual or entity notifying the specific content without undue delay after taking a decision whether or not to act upon the notice.

Recital 53

The notice and action mechanisms should allow for the submission of notices which are sufficiently precise and adequately substantiated to enable the provider of hosting services concerned to take an informed and diligent decision, compatible with the freedom of expression and of information, in respect of the content to which the notice relates, in particular whether or not that content is to be considered illegal content and is to be removed or access thereto is to be disabled. Those mechanisms should be such as to facilitate the provision of notices that contain an explanation of the reasons why the individual or the entity submitting a notice considers that content to be illegal content, and a clear indication of the location of that content. Where a notice contains sufficient information to enable a diligent provider of hosting services to identify, without a detailed legal examination, that it is clear that the content is illegal, the notice should be considered to give rise to actual knowledge or awareness of illegality. Except for the submission of notices relating to offences referred to in Articles 3 to 7 of Directive 2011/93/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (1), those mechanisms should ask the individual or the entity submitting a notice to disclose its identity in order to avoid misuse.


(26) Directive 2011/93/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 December 2011 on combating the sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, and replacing Council Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA (OJ L 335, 17.12.2011, p. 1).

Art. 17 DSA - Statement of reasons arrow_right_alt

Art. 18 DSA - Notification of suspicions of criminal offences arrow_right_alt

Art. 19 DSA - Exclusion for micro and small enterprises arrow_right_alt

Art. 20 DSA - Internal complaint-handling system arrow_right_alt

Art. 21 DSA - Out-of-court dispute settlement arrow_right_alt

Art. 22 DSA - Trusted flaggers arrow_right_alt

Art. 23 DSA - Measures and protection against misuse arrow_right_alt

Art. 24 DSA - Transparency reporting obligations for providers of online platforms arrow_right_alt

Art. 25 DSA - Online interface design and organisation arrow_right_alt

Art. 26 DSA - Advertising on online platforms arrow_right_alt

Art. 27 DSA - Recommender system transparency arrow_right_alt

Art. 28 DSA - Online protection of minors arrow_right_alt

Art. 29 DSA - Exclusion for micro and small enterprises arrow_right_alt

Art. 30 DSA - Traceability of traders arrow_right_alt

Art. 31 DSA - Compliance by design arrow_right_alt

Art. 32 DSA - Right to information arrow_right_alt

Art. 33 DSA - Very large online platforms and very large online search engines arrow_right_alt

Art. 34 DSA - Risk assessment arrow_right_alt

Art. 35 DSA - Mitigation of risks arrow_right_alt

Art. 36 DSA - Crisis response mechanism arrow_right_alt

Art. 37 DSA - Independent audit arrow_right_alt

Art. 38 DSA - Recommender systems arrow_right_alt

Art. 39 DSA - Additional online advertising transparency arrow_right_alt

Art. 40 DSA - Data access and scrutiny arrow_right_alt

Art. 41 DSA - Compliance function arrow_right_alt

Art. 42 DSA - Transparency reporting obligations arrow_right_alt

Art. 43 DSA - Supervisory fee arrow_right_alt

Art. 44 DSA - Standards arrow_right_alt

Art. 45 DSA - Codes of conduct arrow_right_alt

Art. 46 DSA - Codes of conduct for online advertising arrow_right_alt

Art. 47 DSA - Codes of conduct for accessibility arrow_right_alt

Art. 48 DSA - Crisis protocols arrow_right_alt