The Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information ('BfDI') released, on 18 February 2021, a statement calling for the Telecommunication Act 2004 and the Telemedia Act 2007 to be amended in light of the General Data Protection Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) ('GDPR'). In particular, the BfDI highlighted that many of the Telecommunication Act provisions either no longer apply or only partially, however still appear in the legal text. Furthermore, the BfDI outlined that the Telemedia Act and the Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications (Directive 2002/58/EC) (as amended) ('the ePrivacy Directive') outline different requirements, creating uncertainty with regard to the use of cookies.

In addition, the BfDI noted that the legislator is planning to remove the data protection regulations from the Telecommunication Act and the Telemedia Act and transfer them into a draft act on data protection in telecommunication and telemedia, while at the same time the Electronic Communication Code is expected to be implemented into national law as part of a Telecommunications Moderisation Act. Nonetheless, the BfDI stated that this should have been done before 21 December 2020, and that it is unclear whether either act will be passed before the federal elections which could be problematic as both must take effect at the same time.

You can read the press release, only available in German, here.