The Bundeskriminalamt (BKA) provides a central notification portal for obliged service providers to submit notices relating to suspected criminal offences pursuant to Art. 18 of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
German portal for notification pursuant to Art. 18 of the DSA
Hosting service providers can submit notices pursuant to Art. 18 of the DSA to the Bundeskriminalamt via the DSA notification portal. The notification portal can be accessed via the following link on the BKA website:
To activate access authorisation for the notification portal, the personal e-mail addresses of the competent employees or a generic e-mail address of the competent unit are/is required. Access authorisation will be set up and confirmed via e-mail by the BKA following receipt of your response.
Please use the following e-mail address to register with the notification portal:
Information to be provided on the notification portal
To be able to process notices expeditiously, we require the following information, represented by data fields on the notification portal.
Please note that, in general, effective criminal prosecution and aversion of danger are hindered by a lack of relevant information.
a) Threat case (yes/no)
A case is a threat case/to be considered a threat case if the life or safety of an individual or individuals is at risk and if there is reasonable probability that harm will be caused in the foreseeable future. The notification portal is not intended to handle emergency calls, however. In case of an emergency, dial 110.
Please note: Suicide announcements/suicides do not constitute an offence under German law and therefore do not fall under the notification obligation of Art. 18 of the DSA as far as Germany is concerned. Nevertheless, notices relating to suicides can still be submitted to the BKA via the notification portal. Please select the crime field "Other".
b) Field of crime
Based on the case-specific details, the obliged entity should make an assessment as to the field of crime the case falls under. The notification portal lists 6 fields of crime in this context, namely
- Terrorism
- Hate crime including hate speech
- Sexual offence against children and juveniles
- Human trafficking
- Violence
- Other
If the case does not fit into any of the fields of crime given or if there are uncertainties as to what field of crime to choose, please select "Other".
Please note that the above-mentioned fields of crime do not represent an exhaustive list of crime fields that are of criminal relevance under the DSA.
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c) Data files relating to the case in question
Screenshots, videos, etc., relating to the case. Accepted file formats: asf, .avi, .bmp, .dib, .doc, .docx, .dot, .flv, .gif, .jfi, .jfif, .jif, .jpe, .jpeg, .jpg, .m1v, .m2a, .m2v, .m3a, .m4v, .mov, .mp2, .mp2a, .mp3, .mp4, .mp4v, .mpe, .mpeg, .mpg, .mpg4, .mpga, .oga, .ogg, .ogv, .pdf, .png, .qt, .rm, .swf, .wav, .webm, .wmv, .xla, .xlc, .xld, .xll, .xlm, .xls, .xlsx, .xlt, .xlw, .zip
d) User ID/account ID or user profile URL
Immutable ID of the registered user
e) Internal reference number
Reference number / file number assigned by the provider, to be indicated in case there are any further questions
f) Further information
Information about the case
- URL of the content (format: https://)
- Upload IP address
- Upload timestamp (UTC) (format: dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm:ss)
- Upload port number
- Files relating to the overall context
- Context on the content (free text field, description of punishable content)
Information about the user
- User name
- Display name
- Files relating to the user profile or other
- First name
- Last name
- Date of birth
- E-mail address
- Telephone number
- Registration date (UTC)
- Registration IP address
- Registration port number
- Comments/Additional information
User activity
- Most recently used IP address
- Most recently used port number
- Most recent timestamp (UTC)
- Most recent profile activity (UTC)
g) Information about NCMEC cases
Various hosting service providers are required by US law to report punishable content to the NCMEC (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children), or they report such content voluntarily. Within the scope of application of the DSA, they may also, at the same time, be subject to the notification obligation pursuant to Art. 18 of the DSA.
On the notification portal, it is possible to indicate whether a report has already been made to the NCMEC when selecting the field of crime "Child/youth sexual abuse material". If this is the case, it is sufficient to indicate the NCMEC report number. To avoid duplicate notification, there is no need to enter/submit any additional information. Alternatively, the NCMEC report number can be submitted via e-mail to the e-mail address indicated further above. In this case, do not submit an additional notice via the notification portal.