General conditions for electronic communication with the State Capital Düsseldorf

Effective 10 May 2017

Düsseldorf municipality (Stadtverwaltung) offers the possibility of electronic communication by email, De-Mail and by using online procedures and forms.
It is possible for electronic documents to be transmitted both by using a required form and also without any required form. Düsseldorf municipality provides unrestricted access subject to the following conditions:

Scope of application

The general conditions apply exclusively to communication with Düsseldorf municipality and not to communication with municipal subsidiaries such as the Stadtwerke (utilities) or AWISTA. The general conditions also do not apply to the submission of electronic tenders in response to invitations from the state capital Düsseldorf, which are subject to their own procedures and rules.

Scope of access

The availability of access applies to

all email and De-Mail addresses currently published at www.duesseldorf.de,
all email and De-Mail addresses stated in municipal letterheads, for replies to the particular letter
all the online procedures and forms offered at www.duesseldorf.de where these send data to the municipality.

Access is hereby expressly stated to be unavailable to all Düsseldorf municipality's other email and De-Mail addresses, online procedures and forms!

Email security

Unencrypted emails can be intercepted and read or altered by third parties on their way through the internet.

Confidential data should therefore never be sent by way of unencrypted email!

Encrypted emails can be sent to the municipality via the central email address: poststelle@duesseldorf.de. The official certificate necessary for encryption (S/MIME) can be downloaded from the Contact page.
Further information on email encryption or on the integration and use of S/MIME-certificates can be found in your email program's user manual.

De-Mail security

De-Mails are automatically encrypted in the course of transmission and are thus adequately protected against tampering and being ready by unauthorised parties. The municipality therefore does not offer any extra encryption method for De-Mail.

Security of online procedures and forms

It is a basic rule that the exchange of data using the online procedures and forms offered at www.duesseldorf.de is encrypted (HTTPS/SSL), and it is thus protected against interception and tampering.

Communication without required form

Communication by correspondence where no personal written signature is required can be sent to all the access points specified above.

Communication by required form

Communication by correspondence where a personal written signature is required can, except where statutory rules provide otherwise, be accepted as observing written form if it

is sent as an email or De-Mail in PDF format and furnished with a qualified electronic signature under article 3 no. 12 of Regulation (EU) no. 910/2014 (eIDAS VO) or
is sent per De-Mail using the dispatch option required under section 5 (5) De-Mail-G (German De-Mail act) (sender-confirmed De-Mail).

You will be informed if documents you have submitted cannot be processed by the municipality. Statutory time limits will in this case be neither applied nor observed.

The municipality will do its best to reply using the same means as yours when you made contact. If there are technical or legal reasons militating against a reply in electronic form, the reply will be in writing. It is for this reason that a postal address must always be given when you communicate with us electronically using a website form.

Please note too that scanned documents that originally existed on paper represent copies only, and are no substitute for the originals that you may possibly be required to submit.

File formats

If you wish to send the municipality file attachments, please bear in mind that the municipality cannot support all the file formats and applications that are usual on the market. The following file formats are currently supported:

ASCII and Rich text files (*.txt, *.rtf),
JPEG, PNG GIF and BMP graphic files (*.jpg, *.jpeg, *.png, *.gif, *.bmp),
Adobe PDF (*.pdf),
Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Project files as from version 2007 provided they do not contain macros or embedded objects (OLE) (*.docx, *.xlsx, *.pptx,*.mpp),
OpenOffice Text, Spreadsheet and Presentation documents provided they do not contain macros or embedded objects (OLE) (*.odt, *.ods, *odp).

You can compress files and keep them together in ZIP or RAR archives (*.zip, *.rar). No other compressing and archiving methods are supported.
File attachments must not be encrypted with a password, as otherwise the file format cannot be determined and the attachment investigated for viruses and malware.
Other file formats than those specified above are not supported, or only supported by prior agreement. Files in unsupported or indefinable file formats, even if they are transmitted in compressed form or in archive files, will be deleted unread. You will not receive any information on this.

Email size / Data volume

The total volume of emails to the municipality, including all attachments, is limited to 50 MB. Larger emails are not accepted.

Please note that attachments in a binary format can be larger for the dispatch of emails, as they are converted into ASCII text for dispatch by email.

The total volume of a De-Mail is limited by the De-Mail system to 10 MB.

Viruses & SPAM

Emails which contain file attachments that are classified as infected by an anti-virus program or which cannot be investigated by the anti-virus program are deleted unread. You will not receive any information on this.

Emails which are sent via email servers that also deliver a large amount of unsolicited advertising (SPAM) are not accepted. You will receive an advice to this effect. In such cases please contact your email service provider.

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