Article 26

Jurisdiction and territoriality

1.   Entities falling within the scope of this Directive shall be considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the Member State in which they are established, except in the case of:

(a)

providers of public electronic communications networks or providers of publicly available electronic communications services, which shall be considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the Member State in which they provide their services;

(b)

DNS service providers, TLD name registries, entities providing domain name registration services, cloud computing service providers, data centre service providers, content delivery network providers, managed service providers, managed security service providers, as well as providers of online marketplaces, of online search engines or of social networking services platforms, which shall be considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the Member State in which they have their main establishment in the Union under paragraph 2;

(c)

public administration entities, which shall be considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the Member State which established them.

2.   For the purposes of this Directive, an entity as referred to in paragraph 1, point (b), shall be considered to have its main establishment in the Union in the Member State where the decisions related to the cybersecurity risk-management measures are predominantly taken. If such a Member State cannot be determined or if such decisions are not taken in the Union, the main establishment shall be considered to be in the Member State where cybersecurity operations are carried out. If such a Member State cannot be determined, the main establishment shall be considered to be in the Member State where the entity concerned has the establishment with the highest number of employees in the Union.

3.   If an entity as referred to in paragraph 1, point (b), is not established in the Union, but offers services within the Union, it shall designate a representative in the Union. The representative shall be established in one of those Member States where the services are offered. Such an entity shall be considered to fall under the jurisdiction of the Member State where the representative is established. In the absence of a representative in the Union designated under this paragraph, any Member State in which the entity provides services may take legal actions against the entity for the infringement of this Directive.

4.   The designation of a representative by an entity as referred to in paragraph 1, point (b), shall be without prejudice to legal actions, which could be initiated against the entity itself.

5.   Member States that have received a request for mutual assistance in relation to an entity as referred to in paragraph 1, point (b), may, within the limits of that request, take appropriate supervisory and enforcement measures in relation to the entity concerned that provides services or which has a network and information system on their territory.

Frequently Asked Questions

Generally, the country responsible for enforcing these rules is where the company has its main office, except for special cases like cloud providers or social media platforms, whose jurisdiction is determined by where they make major cybersecurity decisions or have their largest EU-based office if no such decisions are made in the EU.
Companies outside the EU must appoint a representative located within a Member State where the company offers services; this representative’s Member State then has jurisdiction over them and ensures compliance, and if no representative is named, the company might face legal action from any country where services are provided.
For certain digital service providers like cloud services, the EU Member State where the cybersecurity decisions are primarily made becomes the jurisdiction responsible; if this location isn’t clear or decisions aren’t made within the EU, jurisdiction goes to the country with cybersecurity operations or, lastly, where the most employees are located.
Yes, Member States can take legal actions against digital providers who do business within their country if these companies fail to appoint a representative in the EU, or when responding to mutual assistance requests for enforcement or supervisory issues related to network and information security.

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