Do I need an EU privacy policy in German?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is mandatory whenever a company based within the European Union collects and utilizes personal data on its website. It is irrelevant where the processing of this data takes place. This also means that even a company outside the EU must comply with the GDPR if it offers products or services, maintains a subsidiary, or has personal data processed (commissioned data processing) within the EU.
As a rule, a GDPR-compliant privacy policy is always required in the national languages of the EU target countries in which the goods or services are offered to EU customers. A missing or incorrect privacy policy for your website may constitute a data protection violation.
German is the number one native language spoken in the European Union, giving you—together with English—access to 80 % of all consumers within the world's largest common economic area.
Do I need a legal notice in German?
In contrast to many other countries, companies in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland must publish a legal notice ("Impressum"). The extent and minimum disclosures are regulated by law but may differ depending on state law. Providers from other EU member states do not need to comply with this legal requirement under, e.g., German law, but only with the corresponding regulations of the state in which the company has its registered office (country of origin principle). For online content, the legal notice (or legal disclosure) is part of a website that contains information about the website operator (provider identification). This is also important within the data protection context since the legal notice provides information about the data collector and allows users to communicate with responsible parties. Besides fulfilling legal requirements, the legal notice can be compared with a business card, allowing the website user to check the provider's legitimacy.
The common understanding is that a legal notice must be provided in the languages used on the rest of the website. And there are good reasons to offer your website in German: German is the number one first language spoken in the European Union, giving you, together with English, access to 80 % of all consumers within the world's largest common economic area. Furthermore, more than 72 % of consumers spend most or all of their time on websites in their language while being more likely to buy a product offered with information in their mother tongue.
Why use a specialist translator?
Many providers offer free GDPR privacy policy generators and legal notice templates—also in German. This is convenient, but these texts frequently result from machine translation of the assembled text modules, use inconsistent (or even incorrect) terminology, and do not consider your customizations and additions. Therefore, these translations are often inadequate. This may become expensive! Your professional translator will ensure that the legal terms are translated correctly and consistently so that you can provide the information in the target language accurately, transparently, in an easily accessible form, and in a clear and straightforward language. Moreover, the “plausibility check” that your source text undergoes during translation should not be underestimated.
