Source: OJ L 277, 27/10/2022, p. 1–102Current language: EN
- Digital services act
Basic legislative acts
- DSA regulation
Article 5 Caching
Summary What does Article 5 of the DSA regulation say?
This article establishes a conditional liability exemption for providers of "caching" services — that is, services that temporarily store transmitted information to make its onward delivery more efficient or secure.
It sits alongside Article 4 (mere conduit) and Article 6 (hosting) as part of a trio of liability exemption provisions, and follows a similar logic: providers are shielded from liability only so long as they meet a defined set of conditions.
The article also preserves the ability of judicial or administrative authorities to order providers to stop or prevent an infringement, regardless of whether the exemption applies.
Important points:
- As a caching service provider, comply with the conditions set out in this article — including not modifying content, respecting access conditions, and following industry-standard update rules — to benefit from the liability exemption.
- Act expeditiously to remove or disable access to cached information once you become aware that it has been removed at the source or that an authority has ordered its removal.
- Judicial and administrative authorities retain the power to require service providers to terminate or prevent an infringement, even where the exemption conditions are met.
Springlex's summary of the article is a reading aid, not a substitute for the legal text.
Where an information society service is provided that consists of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, the service provider shall not be liable for the automatic, intermediate and temporary storage of that information, performed for the sole purpose of making more efficient or more secure the information's onward transmission to other recipients of the service upon their request, on condition that the provider:
does not modify the information;
complies with conditions on access to the information;
complies with rules regarding the updating of the information, specified in a manner widely recognised and used by industry;
does not interfere with the lawful use of technology, widely recognised and used by industry, to obtain data on the use of the information; and
acts expeditiously to remove or to disable access to the information it has stored upon obtaining actual knowledge of the fact that the information at the initial source of the transmission has been removed from the network, or access to it has been disabled, or that a judicial or an administrative authority has ordered such removal or disablement.
This Article shall not affect the possibility for a judicial or administrative authority, in accordance with a Member State’s legal system, to require the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement.
Relevant recitals
Recital 21 Neutrality condition for mere conduit and caching
A provider should be able to benefit from the exemptions from liability for ‘mere conduit’ and for ‘caching’ services when it is in no way involved with the information transmitted or accessed. This requires, among other things, that the provider does not modify the information that it transmits or to which it provides access. However, this requirement should not be understood to cover manipulations of a technical nature which take place in the course of the transmission or access, as long as those manipulations do not alter the integrity of the information transmitted or to which access is provided.
Springlex and this text is meant purely as a documentation tool and has no legal effect. No liability is assumed for its content. The authentic version of this act is the one published in the Official Journal of the European Union.
Definition
recipient of the service
Definition
information society service
Definition
intermediary service
- a ‘mere conduit’ service, consisting of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the provision of access to a communication network;
- a ‘caching’ service, consisting of the transmission in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, involving the automatic, intermediate and temporary storage of that information, performed for the sole purpose of making more efficient the information's onward transmission to other recipients upon their request;
- a ‘hosting’ service, consisting of the storage of information provided by, and at the request of, a recipient of the service;