European UnionDigital Services Act (DSA), Articles 20 to 23, 24(1) and 24(5) (Complaints, out-of-court dispute settlement, trusted flaggers, misuse and platform transparency reports)
Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, Arts. 20-23, 24(1), 24(5)
In force since .
A transparency and process rule binding private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Governance, Disclosure, Reporting
As of .
What it requires
- If you provide an online platform and qualify as a micro or small enterprise as defined in Recommendation 2003/361/EC, Section 3 of Chapter III does not apply to you, except Article 24(3), and that exclusion continues for 12 months after you lose the status unless you are a very large online platform. If the Commission designates you a very large online platform, the Section applies to you whether or not you are a micro or small enterprise.
- Give recipients of your service, including individuals or entities that have submitted a notice, for at least six months after the decision, access to an effective internal complaint-handling system that lets them lodge complaints, electronically and free of charge, against your decision on a notice and against your decisions, taken on the ground that the information they provided is illegal content or incompatible with your terms and conditions, whether or not to remove, disable access to or restrict the visibility of the information, to suspend or terminate the service in whole or in part, to suspend or terminate their account, or to suspend, terminate or otherwise restrict their ability to monetise information. The six months run from the day the recipient is informed of the decision under Article 16(5) or Article 17.
- Make the complaint system easy to access and user-friendly, enable and facilitate sufficiently precise and adequately substantiated complaints, and handle complaints in a timely, non-discriminatory, diligent and non-arbitrary manner. Reverse your decision without undue delay where a complaint gives sufficient grounds to consider that your decision not to act on a notice is unfounded, that the information is not illegal and not incompatible with your terms and conditions, or that the complainant's conduct does not warrant the measure taken.
- Inform complainants without undue delay of your reasoned decision and of the possibility of out-of-court dispute settlement under Article 21 and other available possibilities for redress, and have those decisions taken under the supervision of appropriately qualified staff, not solely on the basis of automated means.
- Make information about the possibility of out-of-court dispute settlement easily accessible on your online interface, clear and user-friendly. Engage in good faith with the certified out-of-court dispute settlement body the recipient selects, though you may refuse to engage if a dispute has already been resolved concerning the same information and the same grounds of alleged illegality or incompatibility of content.
- If the out-of-court dispute settlement body decides the dispute in favour of the recipient, bear all the fees charged by the body and reimburse the recipient for any other reasonable expenses it paid in relation to the dispute settlement.
- Take the necessary technical and organisational measures to ensure that notices submitted by trusted flaggers, acting within their designated area of expertise, through your Article 16 mechanism are given priority and are processed and decided upon without undue delay.
- If you have information indicating that a trusted flagger has submitted a significant number of insufficiently precise, inaccurate or inadequately substantiated notices, communicate it to the Digital Services Coordinator that awarded the trusted flagger status, with the necessary explanations and supporting documents.
- After a prior warning, suspend for a reasonable period of time the provision of your services to recipients that frequently provide manifestly illegal content, and suspend for a reasonable period of time the processing of notices and complaints from individuals, entities or complainants that frequently submit manifestly unfounded ones.
- Decide on a suspension case by case, in a timely, diligent and objective manner, taking into account at least the absolute numbers of manifestly illegal items or manifestly unfounded notices or complaints in a given time frame, their relative proportion, the gravity of the misuse and, where it can be identified, the intention of the recipient, individual, entity or complainant. Set out your policy on this misuse in your terms and conditions in a clear and detailed manner, with examples of the facts and circumstances you take into account and the duration of the suspension.
- Include in your transparency reports under Article 15, in addition to the information Article 15 requires, the number of disputes submitted to out-of-court dispute settlement bodies, the outcomes, the median time needed to complete the procedures and the share of disputes where you implemented the body's decisions, and the number of suspensions imposed under Article 23, distinguishing suspensions for manifestly illegal content, for manifestly unfounded notices and for manifestly unfounded complaints.
- Submit to the Commission, without undue delay, your decisions and the statements of reasons referred to in Article 17(1) for inclusion in the Commission's publicly accessible machine-readable database, and make sure the information you submit contains no personal data.
If you get it wrong
Private right of actionYes
Penalty structure
Article 52(3) requires Member States to set the maximum fine for a failure to comply with an obligation in the Regulation at 6 % of the provider's annual worldwide turnover in the preceding financial year, and the maximum fine for supplying incorrect, incomplete or misleading information, failing to reply or rectify, or failing to submit to an inspection at 1 % of annual income or worldwide turnover. Article 52(4) sets the maximum periodic penalty payment at 5 % of average daily worldwide turnover or income per day.
- Rule
- Turnover pct only
- As of
- Turnover percentage cap
- 6
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
The authorities of the Member State in which the provider's main establishment is located (Article 56(1)) and, for providers of very large online platforms and of very large online search engines, the European Commission (Article 56(3)).
What this law does
Article 19(1) excludes providers of online platforms that qualify as micro or small enterprises as defined in Recommendation 2003/361/EC from Section 3 of Chapter III, with the exception of Article 24(3), and keeps the exclusion for 12 months after a provider loses that status, except for very large online platforms.
Article 19(2) applies Section 3 to a provider of an online platform designated as a very large online platform in accordance with Article 33, whether or not it qualifies as a micro or small enterprise.
Article 20 requires a provider of an online platform to give recipients of the service, including those who submitted a notice, access for at least six months after the decision to an effective internal complaint-handling system that lets them lodge complaints, electronically and free of charge, against its decision on a notice and against its decisions, taken on the ground that information is illegal content or incompatible with its terms and conditions, whether or not to remove or restrict that information, to suspend or terminate the service or the account, or to restrict monetisation.
The complaint system must be easy to access and user-friendly, complaints must be handled in a timely, non-discriminatory, diligent and non-arbitrary manner, and the provider must reverse its decision without undue delay where a complaint contains sufficient grounds of the kinds Article 20(4) lists.
The provider must inform complainants without undue delay of its reasoned decision and of the possibility of out-of-court dispute settlement, and the decisions must be taken under the supervision of appropriately qualified staff, and not solely on the basis of automated means.
Article 21 entitles recipients of the service, including individuals or entities that have submitted notices, to select any certified out-of-court dispute settlement body to resolve disputes relating to the decisions referred to in Article 20(1). A provider of an online platform must make information about that possibility easily accessible on its online interface, clear and user-friendly.
Both parties must engage, in good faith, with the selected certified body with a view to resolving the dispute, although a provider may refuse to engage if a dispute has already been resolved concerning the same information and the same grounds of alleged illegality or incompatibility of content.
If the body decides the dispute in favour of the recipient, the provider must bear all the fees charged by the body and reimburse the recipient for any other reasonable expenses it paid in relation to the dispute settlement.
Article 22 requires a provider of an online platform to take the necessary technical and organisational measures to ensure that notices submitted by trusted flaggers, acting within their designated area of expertise, through the Article 16 mechanisms are given priority and are processed and decided upon without undue delay.
A provider that has information indicating that a trusted flagger has submitted a significant number of insufficiently precise, inaccurate or inadequately substantiated notices must communicate that information to the Digital Services Coordinator that awarded the status, with the necessary explanations and supporting documents.
Article 23 requires a provider of an online platform to suspend, for a reasonable period of time and after issuing a prior warning, the provision of its services to recipients that frequently provide manifestly illegal content.
It must likewise suspend, for a reasonable period of time and after a prior warning, the processing of notices and complaints submitted through its notice and action mechanisms and internal complaint-handling systems by individuals, entities or complainants that frequently submit manifestly unfounded notices or complaints.
When deciding on a suspension it must assess, case by case and in a timely, diligent and objective manner, whether the misuse occurs, taking into account at least the absolute numbers and the relative proportion of manifestly illegal items or manifestly unfounded notices or complaints, the gravity of the misuse and, where it can be identified, the intention of the person concerned.
It must set out in its terms and conditions, in a clear and detailed manner, its policy on that misuse, with examples of the facts and circumstances it takes into account and the duration of the suspension.
Article 24(1) requires a provider of an online platform to include in its Article 15 reports, in addition to the information Article 15 requires, the number of disputes submitted to out-of-court dispute settlement bodies, their outcomes, the median time to complete them and the share of disputes where the provider implemented the body's decisions, and the number of suspensions imposed under Article 23.
Article 24(5) requires a provider of an online platform to submit to the Commission, without undue delay, the decisions and statements of reasons referred to in Article 17(1) for inclusion in a publicly accessible machine-readable database managed by the Commission, and to ensure that the information submitted does not contain personal data.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform.