Digital Services Act complaints process 

Initial assessment 

Under section 201 of the 2009 Act, we must carry out an initial assessment of the complaint. This initial assessment has two stages:

1. A validity assessment
2. A jurisdictional assessment

Validity assessment 

As part of the validity assessment, we ensure that:

• the recipient of the service is located in Ireland/the European Union (if transmitted by another Member State);
• the intermediary service provider (ISP) is established in Ireland; and
• the complaint relates to a potential infringement of the DSA. The complaint must pass this validity assessment in order for us to proceed with the complaint. 

Jurisdictional assessment 

We also carry out a jurisdictional assessment of the complaint, assessing whether the complaint relates to

• the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission’s (CCPC) competency, i.e. Articles 30,31,32 of the DSA;
• the European Commission’s competency under Articles 33-42 of the DSA.

Coimisiún na Meán will transmit the complaint to the CCPC/European Commission as appropriate following the jurisdictional assessment. We can also transmit to another Digital Services Coordinator (DSC) if necessary i.e. if the ISP is based in another Member State. 

Coimisiún na Meán must notify the complainant of any transmission of the complaint at this point i.e. we must tell the complainant if the complaint has been transmitted to the CCPC, European Commission or another DSC.  

Further assessment 

Following the jurisdictional assessment, Coimisiún na Meán must carry out a further assessment of the complaint. This means we can seek further information from the complainant or ISP, in order to make a decision on the complaint. Essentially, we need to be satisfied that we have sufficient information to make an informed decision on any suspected infringement of the DSA, and we complete this via the further assessment process. Further assessment usually includes seeking further information from the complainant or sending the ISP a copy of the complaint with accompanying questions to respond to, before we propose any action on the complaint. 

Once the further assessment is complete, there are a number of potential actions that can be taken by us: 

1. Serve an ISP with a compliance notice. 
2. Investigate the complaint. 
3. Dismiss the complaint if it is found to be frivolous, vexatious, not made in good faith or trivial. 
4. Such other action as we consider appropriate e.g. the action of passing the complaint to our Supervision Team for further consideration and to inform our supervisory actions. 

In advance of taking action on the complaint however, Coimisiún na Meán has to notify the complainant and ISP of its proposed action. The ISP is also informed that they can make representations in relation to the complaint and are given a timeline to do so. The complainant is not specifically informed of the right to make representations at this point, but they are informed of the ISP’s right to do so, and the timeline. 

Decision 

Once representations are received from the ISP, and considered by us, a final decision is made. 

We must then notify the complainant and the ISP in writing of our final decision.