Germany
AI behavior law: bot and agent disclosure, crawler and training-data rules, automated-agent transactions, and algorithmic decision-making.
Summary
Germany operates a dual-track TDM system (UrhG §44b general + §60d research) that permits crawling public pages for data-mining purposes, subject to a machine-readable opt-out (e.g. robots.txt) for commercial TDM under §44b. StGB §202a applies only when a technical access barrier is overcome, so public pages carry no criminal risk. Germany has the full EU sui generis database right (UrhG §§87a-87e). The BGH has held that screen-scraping is not per se unfair under UWG (I ZR 224/12, 2014). GDPR applies robustly, including BGH ruling on non-material damages for loss of control (VI ZR 97/22, 2024). The EU AI Act binds GPAI providers from Aug 2025, reinforcing the opt-out mechanism and disclosure obligations.
Automated-access legality
Carried forward from the crawler-law index. Governs whether automated clients may access public websites in this jurisdiction.
| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Authorization test | security mechanism bypass |
| Public-page carve-out | yes |
| Terms-of-service browsewrap enforceable | notice dependent |
| Terms-of-service clickwrap enforceable | yes |
| Copyright exception model | tdm dual track |
| Text and data mining — commercial status | with optout |
| Text and data mining — opt-out mechanism | robots txt |
| robots.txt legal weight | evidentiary |
| AI training-specific law | binding |
| Privacy regime | GDPR |
| Trespass to chattels | not recognized |
Last reviewed: 2026-05-21. Confidence: medium. Fast-moving area — verify before relying. Not legal advice.