The National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications (ANCOM) informs users of digital services on how they can notify ANCOM of possible violations of the Digital Services Act.
Obligations of digital service providers
The Digital Services Act imposes a number of obligations on providers of such services, which aim to create a safe, transparent and fair online environment for users. These include:
- designating of a single point of contact for communication with the service recipients (users);
- publishing the terms and conditions of use of the services in clear, simple, intelligible and unambiguous language, in an easily accessible and machine-readable format; the terms and conditions must include the policies, procedures, measures and tools used for the purpose of content moderation;
- putting in place mechanisms to allow any user of the services to report illegal content;
- providing users of affected services with a clear and specific statement of reasons for the restrictions imposed, on the grounds that the information constitutes illegal content or is incompatible with the general terms of use;
- ensuring access of service users to an effective internal complaint-handling system.
The full list of obligations of digital service providers – referred to as intermediary service providers, in the context of the Digital Services Act – is available here.
ANCOM’s role
According to the European Digital Services Act and the national norm, ANCOM is the authority with the role of Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) at national level. In this capacity, ANCOM is responsible for verifying compliance with the obligations incumbent on intermediary service providers established in Romania. Intermediary services are mere conduit services, caching services and hosting services.
What and where to complain
If a user of digital services notices a possible breach of the obligations of a provider of such services, pursuant to Article 53 of the Digital Services Act, he or she may lodge a complaint with ANCOM, using the dedicated form. As a DSC, the Authority receives, analyses, resolves and, as the case may be, redirects to the Digital Services Coordinators in other Member States of the European Union the admissible complaints according to ANCOM Decision no. 335 on the establishment of the procedure for settling complaints on digital services.
Complaints regarding illegal content in the online environment are not solved by ANCOM, in its capacity as DSC, but by the relevant authorities, i.e. those authorities that have supervisory and control attributions in a certain field.
Important!
For an efficient analysis of a complaint regarding violations of the DSA, ANCOM recommends the users to thoroughly document it, and to attach conclusive evidence for each step they had taken. It is mandatory to provide the data necessary to identify the intermediary service provider targeted by the complaint, such as name, address/headquarters, URL of the provider's website or any other information held by the petitioner.
Background information
The Digital Services Act does not provide for a certain degree of moderation, but for fair moderation, respecting users' rights to freedom of expression while promoting a safe and transparent online environment.
For supporting users of digital services, the Authority has published, in a dedicated section on the ANCOM InfoCentre, detailed information on ANCOM's role as a Digital Services Coordinator, what is illegal content, who can file a complaint, which services can be the subject of a complaint under Article 53 of the Digital Services Act or on reporting illegal content.