Provides telecom services, in Germany

TDDDG § 3 · Read the law's page

• If you provide a publicly available telecommunications service, help provide one, offer a telecommunications service commercially, or operate a public telecommunications network or a telecommunications installation used commercially, keep the content of telecommunication and its circumstances secret, including whether anyone takes or took part in it and the circumstances of unsuccessful connection attempts, and keep doing so after your activity ends (TDDDG § 3(1) and (2)).
• Do not obtain knowledge of the content or circumstances of telecommunication beyond what providing the service, operating the network or installation and protecting its technical systems requires, and use what you learn only for that purpose (TDDDG § 3(3)).
• Pass on knowledge covered by the secrecy of telecommunications only where the TDDDG or another statute that expressly refers to telecommunications processes provides for it (TDDDG § 3(3)).

TKG § 165, Technische und organisatorische Schutzmaßnahmen · Read the law's page

• If you provide telecommunications services or contribute to them, take appropriate technical precautions and other measures, taking the state of the art into account, to protect the secrecy of telecommunications and against personal-data breaches (Section 165(1)).
• If you operate a public telecommunications network or provide a publicly available telecommunications service, take appropriate technical and organisational measures against disruptions that significantly impair networks and services and to control the risks to their security, including encryption where appropriate and measures that secure systems against unauthorised access and limit the effects of security breaches (Section 165(2)).
• If you are an essential or important entity under Section 28 of the BSI Act, base those measures on an all-hazards approach that covers at least risk analysis and security concepts, incident handling, business continuity, supply-chain security, security in acquisition, development and maintenance including vulnerability management and disclosure, effectiveness assessment, basic cyber hygiene and training, cryptography, personnel security and access control, and multi-factor or continuous authentication (Section 165(2a)); have your management implement and monitor them and take part in regular training (Section 165(2b) and (2d)).
• If you operate a public network or provide a public service with increased hazard potential, use attack-detection systems that capture and evaluate threats continuously and automatically (Section 165(3)); as a network operator, use critical components only after a recognised certification body has examined and certified them (Section 165(4)), and undergo a review by a qualified independent body or competent national authority every two years, sending a copy of the report to the Bundesnetzagentur and the BSI and bearing the cost (Section 165(9)).
• If you operate a public telecommunications network, take measures to keep it operating properly and its services continuously available (Section 165(5)).

Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG) vom 16. Juli 2021 (BGBl. I S. 2970), §§ 1 bis 3, 14, 16, 17, 37 und 38 · Read the law's page

• If you offer or provide to consumers a service listed in section 1(3) (telecommunications services other than machine-to-machine transmission services; the websites, mobile services and applications, electronic tickets, transport information and interactive self-service terminals of air, bus, rail and waterborne passenger transport, where for urban, suburban and regional transport only the interactive self-service terminals are covered; consumer banking services; e-books and dedicated software; e-commerce services), offer or provide it only if it meets the accessibility requirements of the Verordnung zum Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz, so that persons with disabilities can find, reach and use it in the generally customary way, without particular difficulty and in principle without outside help (BFSG, s. 3(1) and s. 14(1) item 1; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Art. 13(1)).
• For an e-commerce service (a digital service offered through a website or an application on a mobile device and provided electronically at a consumer's individual request with a view to concluding a consumer contract), that means the website or app must meet those requirements (s. 2 item 26 and s. 14(1)).
• State in your general terms and conditions, or in another clearly perceivable way, how the service meets the requirements: a general description of the service in an accessible format, the explanations needed to understand how it is carried out, a description of how it meets the applicable requirements, and the competent market surveillance authority; make that information available to the public in accessible form and keep it for as long as you offer or provide the service (s. 14(1) item 2 and (2); Annex 3, item 1).
• Ensure that the requirements are always met while you offer or provide the service, taking account of changes in how it is provided, changes in the requirements and changes in the harmonized standards or technical specifications you rely on (s. 14(3)).
• If the service does not meet the requirements, take the corrective measures needed to bring it into conformity and inform the market surveillance authority and the authorities of the Member States where you provide the service, without delay and with details of the non-conformity and the measures taken (s. 14(4)).
• Give the market surveillance authority, on its reasoned request, all the information needed to demonstrate conformity, and cooperate with it on every measure to restore conformity (s. 14(5)).
• You may rely on section 16 (a significant change that would fundamentally alter the basic nature of the service) or on section 17 (a disproportionate burden, judged on the criteria of Annex 4) only after you have assessed it and documented the assessment, which you keep for five years from the last time you provided the service and give the authority on request (ss. 16(1) and (2), 17(1) and (2)).
• If you rely on section 17, repeat the assessment for each category or type of service at least every five years, and whenever the service changes or the competent authority asks; you may not rely on it if you receive public or private funds, other than your own, to improve accessibility (s. 17(3) and (4)).
• If you rely on section 16 or 17 for a particular service, inform the market surveillance authority, and the authorities of the Member States where you provide the service, without delay (ss. 16(3) and 17(5)).
• The duty in section 3(1) does not apply to a microenterprise that offers or provides services: an enterprise that employs fewer than ten persons and has either an annual turnover of at most EUR 2 million or an annual balance sheet total of at most EUR 2 million (s. 3(3) and s. 2 item 17).
• The Act does not apply to pre-recorded time-based media and office file formats published before 28 June 2025, online maps and map services (if the essential navigation information is offered in accessible digital form), content of third parties that you neither finance, develop nor control, or content of websites and mobile applications that counts as an archive because it is not updated or revised after 28 June 2025 (s. 1(4)).
• Until 27 June 2030 you may go on providing your services with products you lawfully used for that or similar services before 28 June 2025, and a service contract concluded before 28 June 2025 may continue unchanged until it expires, but no longer than 27 June 2030 (s. 38(1)).
• A self-service terminal you lawfully used before 28 June 2025 may stay in use for comparable services until the end of its economic useful life, but no longer than fifteen years after it was put into use (s. 38(2)); the Directive would have allowed 20 years (Art. 32(2)).

Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSG), §§ 20 bis 23, 28 bis 30, 32 bis 35 · Read the law's page

• If a market surveillance authority checks a product or service of yours, cooperate fully with it; economic operators must cooperate with the authority in checking a product (BFSG, s. 22(1)), and must give it, on its reasoned request, the information it needs for its tasks, though you may refuse to answer a question whose answer would expose you or a relative to criminal prosecution or to proceedings for an administrative offence, and you must be told of that right (s. 35).
• If the authority finds that a product does not meet the requirements, take suitable measures to restore conformity within the reasonable period it sets, and extend them to all the affected products you made available on the Union market; if you do not, the authority restricts or prohibits making the product available on the German market, or has it withdrawn or recalled (s. 22(2) to (4)).
• If the authority finds a formal non-conformity (a missing or incorrect CE marking or EU declaration of conformity, unavailable or incomplete technical documentation, missing or incorrect manufacturer or importer details, or another unmet formal obligation under sections 6, 7, 9 or 10), correct it within the reasonable period it sets, failing which it restricts or prohibits making the product available until conformity is established (s. 23).
• If the authority finds that a service does not meet the requirements, take suitable corrective measures within the period it sets; if you do not, it calls on you again under threat of prohibiting the service, and if you still do not, it can order you to stop offering or providing the service within a period it sets, and withdraws the order once you show conformity (s. 29).
• If the authority finds a formal non-conformity of a service (the information under Annex 3 not prepared, or not completely, or not made available to the public in accessible form, or not completely), correct it within the reasonable period it sets, failing which it calls on you again under threat of prohibition and then takes the necessary measures (s. 30).

Verordnung zum Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSGV), §§ 1 bis 22 · Read the law's page

• If you place on the market a product listed in section 1(2) of the BFSG, or provide a service listed in section 1(3) to consumers, meet the requirements of the Verordnung zum Barrierefreiheitsstärkungsgesetz (BFSGV, s. 1; Directive (EU) 2019/882, Annex I); a microenterprise that provides services is exempt from the duty (BFSG, s. 3(3)).
• Observe the state of the art in meeting the requirements; you may depart from it if the requirements are met to the same degree in another way, and the Bundesfachstelle für Barrierefreiheit publishes the standards it regards as most important on its website (s. 3). Conformity with a harmonized standard whose reference is published in the Official Journal of the European Union is presumed to meet the requirements it covers (BFSG, s. 4).
• Products: give the information on the product itself (labels, instructions for use, warnings) through more than one sensory channel, in an understandable and perceivable way, in a font of suitable size and shape with sufficient contrast and spacing (s. 4(1)); make public, when the product is placed on the market, the information on its accessibility features, their activation and interoperability with assistive technologies, and on its use, in the ten ways section 4(2) lists, and give the information on the product itself where possible (s. 4(2) and (3)).
• Products: put the packaging information on the packaging where its size or nature allows, and make installation, maintenance, storage and disposal instructions that are not on the product publicly available and accessible when the product is placed on the market, except for self-service terminals (s. 5).
• Products: give the product, including its user interface, components, functions and features that let persons with disabilities access, perceive, operate, understand and control it (s. 6(1)), and meet the thirteen requirements of section 6(2): more than one sensory channel, alternatives to speech and voice input, flexible size, brightness, contrast and visual clarity, alternatives to colour and to audible signals, volume and speed control with enhanced audio functions, sequential control and alternatives to fine motor control with tactilely recognizable parts, no operation needing great reach or force, no triggering of photosensitive seizures, privacy when accessibility features are used, alternatives to biometric identification and control, consistency with enough flexible time, and software and hardware interfaces for assistive technologies.
• Self-service terminals: provide speech output, allow individual headphones, warn through more than one sensory channel when response time is limited and allow it to be extended, provide buttons with sufficient contrast and tactile recognizability, use audio signals compatible with hearing aids, telecoils, cochlear implants and technical hearing aids, and do not require anyone to activate accessibility features before the terminal can be switched on (s. 7).
• E-book readers: provide speech output (s. 8). Consumer terminal equipment with interactive computing capability for telecommunications services: support real-time text where text is used with voice, high audio quality, total conversation services where video is used, an effective wireless connection to hearing technology, and operation without interference with assistive devices (s. 9). Equipment used to access audiovisual media services: provide the accessibility components that the media service provider offers for access, selection, control, personalization and transmission to assistive devices (s. 10).
• Support services such as help desks, call centres, technical support, relay services and training, where available, give accessible information on accessibility and compatibility with assistive technologies through accessible means of communication (ss. 11 and 12 item 4).
• Services: the products you use to provide a service meet sections 4 and 6 to 11 (and section 5 where applicable); information on how the service works, on its connection to those products and on their accessibility features and interoperability is given through more than one sensory channel, findable, understandable, perceivable, in text formats suitable for generating alternative assistive formats, with alternatives to non-text content and in a suitable font; and websites with their online applications and mobile services including apps are perceivable, operable, understandable and robust (s. 12).
• Services: provide functions, procedures, strategies and changes in how the service is carried out that are oriented to the needs of persons with disabilities and ensure interoperability with assistive technologies (s. 13).
• Telecommunications services: where a service enables voice communication, provide real-time text in addition to voice, and a total conversation service where it provides video; synchronize emergency communications across voice and text (and total conversation where video is provided) and pass them on without delay to the local emergency answering point (s. 14).
• Passenger transport services by air, bus, rail and waterborne transport, other than urban, suburban and regional services: provide information on the accessibility of vehicles, surrounding infrastructure and buildings and on assistance, information on smart ticketing systems such as electronic reservation and booking, real-time travel information such as timetables, disruptions, connections and onward travel, and additional service information such as staff on duty at the station, defective lifts and services temporarily unavailable (s. 15); for urban, suburban and regional transport, the interactive self-service terminals used meet sections 4, 6, 7 and 11 (s. 16).
• Consumer banking services: make identification methods, authentication methods, electronic signatures, security functions and payment services perceivable, operable, understandable and robust, and keep information on how the service works at a language level no higher than B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (s. 17).
• E-books: provide synchronized text and audio where the e-book has both, do not prevent assistive technologies from working, ensure access to content and navigation including dynamic layouts, provide a structure, flexibility and choice in presentation and alternative ways of rendering the content, ensure interoperability with assistive technologies, provide metadata that makes accessibility features findable, and ensure that accessibility features are not blocked by technical protection measures under sections 95a to 96 of the Copyright Act (s. 18).
• E-commerce services: provide information on the accessibility of the products and services offered, to the extent the responsible economic operator supplies it, and make identification, authentication, security and payment functions, and identification methods, authentication methods, electronic signatures and payment services, perceivable, operable, understandable and robust (s. 19).
• For functions that sections 4 to 19 do not cover, meet the functional performance criteria of section 21: where a product or service offers visual operation, at least one way of use without vision, one with limited vision and one without colour discrimination; for audible operation, one without hearing and one with enhanced audio; where voice input is needed, one without it; for manual operation, one that needs no fine motor control, hand strength or simultaneous use of several controls; controls within reach of all users; no photosensitive seizure triggers; at least one way of use that eases use with cognitive limitations; and privacy when accessibility features are used (ss. 20(1) and 21); where sections 4 to 19 set a specific technical requirement, you may meet the functional performance criteria instead only if you meet the other requirements of those sections and the result is equally or more accessible (s. 20(2)).