Contribution to TRIS notification of the German Draft Second Act amending the Protection of Young Persons Act (JuschG-ÄndG-E)

With this paper, Bitkom wishes to provide its comments on the proposed German Draft Second Act amending the Protection of Young Persons Act (‘the notified draft Act’ or ‘the draft Act’), which is now being reviewed by the European Commission under the framework of the notification procedure laid down in Directive (EU) 2015/1535. Essentially, the draft Act concerns ‘rules on services’ in the meaning of Article 1(1) (e) (i) of the Directive. There is no disagreement that the notified draft pursues an important goal, namely that of protecting children and young people from harmful online content and providing them with age-appropriate access to digital services. We welcome the initiative of adapting the regulations of the Youth Protection Act to the convergence of media regulations and thus creating modern framework conditions for the protection of minors in Germany. However, we do see a risk of the notified draft limiting the free movement of services within the Union as well as the freedom to provide Information Society Services as based on the country-of-origin principle and codified in the e-Commerce and Audiovisual Media Services Directive.