Trusted flaggers

With the Digital Services Act, different entities have the opportunity to apply for the status of a trusted flagger. The purpose of trusted flaggers is to repel illegal content online. Online platforms must treat reports of illegal content from trusted flaggers with priority and without delay.

The status of trusted flaggers under this Regulation shall be awarded by the Digital Services Coordinator of the Member State of the applicant, which in Finland is the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom.

Entity	Date	Notifiable illegal content
Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre, CIAPC	7/3/2024	Unauthorized use of material protected by copyright
Save the Children Finland	18/6/2024	Protection of minors
Somis Enterprises Oy	18/6/2024	Illegal or harmful speech, non-consensual behaviour, online bullying/intimidation, protection of minors, scams and/or fraud

How to apply to be a trusted flagger

The status of trusted flagger can be obtained if the applicant proves that they meets all of the following conditions:

it has particular expertise and competence for the purposes of detecting, identifying and notifying illegal content;
it is independent from any online platform;
it carries out its activities for the purposes of submitting notices in a timely, diligent and objective manner.

Contents of the application

The application is free-form and is delivered to the address datatalous@traficom.fi. The application must include the following information:

The name of the applicant entity
The address/place of residence of the entity and email address
Contact details (contact person with contact information regarding the application)
Number of staff
For which geographical region/regions (=which EU Member country/countries) and for which language is the applicant applying for trusted flagger status
For what kind of reporting of illegal content the status of a trusted flagger is sought.

Illegal content is defined either by EU or national legislation. Illegal content includes, for example, illegal hate speech and illegal discriminatory content, as well as content that is defined as illegal in legislation because it is related to illegal activities.

Illustrative examples include the sharing of images depicting the sexual abuse of children, the illegal sharing of private images without permission, the sale of non-compliant or fake products, the sale of products or the provision of services that violate consumer protection legislation, the unauthorized use of copyrighted material, the illegal provision of accommodation services or the illegal sale of live animals.

It does not matter whether the illegality of the information or activity is due to Union legislation or national legislation issued in compliance with Union law. If content is only illegal in a certain Member State, it should generally only be removed in the territory where it is illegal.

Demonstrating the fulfilment of the criteria

The applicant can demonstrate that they fulfil the criteria laid down in the regulation for a trusted flagger by describing their activities and skills in their application, for example in the following ways:

An account of what kind of illegal content the applicant is qualified to detect and identify and how the qualification was obtained.
Any reports, statistics or other similar documents from previous illegal content detection and notification activities.
Descriptions or documents of internal procedures or processes related to the detection, assessment and reporting of illegal content.
The training or competence required of the staff and a description of the measures used to maintain the staff's competence.
An account of the measures the applicant has taken or tried to prevent illegal activities outside the network (if there is no experience with online content).

Staff selection procedures / ensuring staff independence.
Funding structure, especially possible funding sources from online platforms and their share of the organisation's total funding, broken down by platform.

Ensuring the number and expertise of staff to detect and evaluate illegal content and sufficiently accurate and error-free notification activities.
Procedures by which the applicant can be notified of suspected illegal content.
Experiences and proof of previous activities for reporting illegal content: error-free targeting of reports to illegal content, effectiveness of reports, i.e. the consequences of reports, and the applicant's procedures for correcting incorrect reports.

The above are examples, and in addition to or instead of these, the applicant can also highlight other factors in their application that show that they fulfil the three conditions mentioned in the regulation. For example, copies of documents that verify the matters described in the application can be submitted as an attachment to the application.

Reporting obligations of the trusted flagger

At least once a year, the trusted flagger must publish a report of all the notifications it submitted in that time period. In the report, the number of notifications must be broken down at least with the following breakdown:

the name of the hosting service provider;
the type of reported allegedly illegal content;
actions taken by the service provider.

The reports must also include an account of the procedures by which the trusted flagger ensures the preservation of its independence.

The trusted flagger must send the reports to Traficom (datatalous@traficom.fi) and make them publicly available. The reports must not include personal data.

Loss of trusted flagger status

Traficom can cancel the status of trusted flagger that it has granted, if the trusted flagger no longer meets the requirements of the Digital Services Act. You can also lose your status if you have submitted a significant number of inaccurate, incorrect or insufficiently justified notifications.

Information about trusted flaggers on the European Commission's website

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Trusted flaggers