Broadcasting Fee Officer
Broadcasting fee officers were self-employed who worked full-time or part-time as subcontractors for the German state broadcasters . They were popularly called GEZ inspectors or GEZ investigators . Contrary to popular misconceptions, they were neither civil servants nor had sovereign rights. They also had no contractual relationship with the central fee administration (GEZ), although some of them carried "GEZ IDs" in addition to the proper IDs of the respective state broadcaster. Broadcasting license fee officers had the task of checking compliance with the license fee in accordance with the State Treaty on Broadcasting Fees in an area assigned to them. To enforce this was not one of their powers, although it is often reported that this appearance was created or not avoided by license fee officers.
As part of the changeover to the license fee in 2013, the commissioning service was discontinued between 2012 and 2014, depending on the federal state.
Tasks and area of activity
In order to record all radio participants as completely as possible - also from the point of view of fairness in terms of fees - the state broadcasting corporations employed the license fee officers, who take over the investigation and control of those liable for fees. Since a certain proportion of the radio receivers were not registered or not registered correctly for various reasons, the license fee officers were used by the state broadcasters to correctly register and advise radio participants on site. Their tasks could be summarized as follows:
- Informing the radio participants about all questions about the obligation to pay fees
- To provide information on the applicable provisions regarding the registration and availability of radio receivers (radio and television sets) as well as the payment of radio fees (basic and television fee).
- If necessary, to receive registrations from previously unregistered receivers. The actual task, however, is only to determine whether there is an unfulfilled fee obligation.
There were around 5,000 license fee officers in Germany. When the contract was signed, they were assigned their fixed local area of activity ( so-called authorized area, approx. 100,000 inhabitants ) by the state broadcasters . They received for each newly determined by them, not previously reported notifiable radio or television commission . The license fee officers carried out their mandate at their own discretion and risk, whereby they had to comply with the limits of their powers and the applicable law and the state broadcasters expected regular full-time work.
Legal Powers and Duties
The fee commissioner worked on behalf of the state broadcasting corporations (LRA) to implement their right to information. The responsible LRA was able to request information about the reason, amount and period of their obligation to pay fees from radio subscribers and from persons for whom there were actual indications that they had a radio device ready for reception. Fee commissioners thus carried this right to information about the residents of their area of activity within the meaning of the State Broadcasting Treaty. But they had no authority to enforce this right to information against anyone.
Anyone who did not or did not want to provide information could only be obliged to provide information by the state broadcaster itself, ie not by the fee commissioner (so-called “ administrative compulsory procedure ” with the object of obtaining information). The fees officer had no rights in this regard and, in particular, was not allowed to force or blackmail any information. The state broadcasting corporation was only allowed to carry out an information procedure if it had “registration-relevant information”. It could also request information from people who lived in a household with the radio participant.
The interviewee was able to reject the oral questioning. In this case, a written request had to be sent. Anyone who had no radio receivers at all was obliged to give no information at all. In the opinion of the state data protection officer, no one had to provide any further information who only owns a radio and has already registered it.
Also, none of the respondents was obliged to provide information about third parties in addition to the above-mentioned information on receiving devices in the same household. Rather, the collection of such data was usually not permitted under data protection law without the special consent of the person concerned. There was therefore no obligation to provide information on issues such as who you live with or to whom you gave away a radio.
A fee officer was able to carry GEZ registration forms. However, he was not allowed to bring about a GEZ registration or the signature underneath by threat or deception. He could only note registration-relevant information in an investigation report for the state broadcaster. Cancellations could not be submitted to the fees officer at all, but were only possible in writing directly to the GEZ or the respective state broadcaster.
According to a ruling by the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH), broadcasting fee officers had no sovereign powers, as they were not entitled to compulsory powers, the so-called debt collection law. For example, they were not allowed to enter private rooms against the will of the residents. The violation of an invitation to leave or not to enter private rooms is trespassing .
According to the report by the Saxon data protection officer for the reporting period from April 1, 2007 to March 31, 2009, license fee officers were also not entitled to administrative assistance from the police, e.g. B. when establishing personal details.
Fees officers were also not authorized to have their tasks performed by third parties or to carry them out jointly with unauthorized third parties.
Problems
The fees officer were to succeed - that is, after the number of newly registered participants and the amount of the driven payments - provisioned , but had - besides the national broadcasters after Rundfunkgebührenstaatsvertrag contract entitled Right to information - no further legal powers.
As a result, there was a risk that they would get into a conflict of interest and that their investigative efforts against real or presumed nondescripts often took place in a legal gray area. Reports in the press according to which individual agents exceeded legal limits during the search (e.g. through intimidation or deception) could be explained by this.
The activity of the fee commissioner was subject to the control of the competent state broadcaster, which was supposed to investigate reports of misconduct by the fee commissioner.
privacy
The data protection officers of the responsible state broadcaster were responsible for the data protection control of the broadcasting officers.
image
The reputation of the license fee officers in society was mostly very bad. The reasons for this lay on the one hand in the fact that the permitted investigations and controls of the fee officers were associated with spy services and the activities of snoopers. Other reasons lay in the misconduct of individual fee officers, which has been reported again and again and which some affected persons perceive as very burdensome, which in some cases has led to grueling procedures for those affected. A more positive image of the fee officers was also opposed to the fact that they usually visited their clientele unannounced and surprisingly and sometimes also in the evening hours. Some media campaigns by broadcasters, in which dubious methods and methods that violate the rules of good taste, were seen also met with broad social criticism. On the part of the broadcasters, these circumstances were mostly not accepted as possible reasons for the bad image. On the other hand, it was assumed that the so-called black viewers identified by the fee commissioners, who were confronted with substantial additional payments, reported negatively about the commissioners. Among other things, young people were assumed to deliberately avoid paying the fee for as long as possible by not registering.
Web links
- The GEZ on the tasks of the radio license commissioner
- Broadcasting fees: your rights vis-à-vis the GEZ investigator, article from Stiftung Warentest
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- ↑ Commission to determine the financial needs of broadcasters: 20th report. April 2016, accessed March 22, 2019 .
- ↑ Frequently asked questions about the GEZ (Independent State Center for Data Protection Schleswig-Holstein) ( Memento of the original from February 5, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ BFH of December 14, 1978 IR 121/76 (BFHE 126, 311, BStBl. II 1979, 188)
- ↑ https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Datenschuetzer-Polizei-kein-GEZ-Ermittlungshelfer-892266.html
- ↑ http://www.saechsdsb.de/images/stories/sdb_inhalt/oeb/taetigkeitsberichte/14_TB.pdf
- ↑ FAZ: Increase the commission - article from the series "The Methods of the GEZ"
