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Definitions For the purpose of this Regulation, the following definitions apply:

(1) ‘European Production Order’ means a decision ordering the production of electronic evidence, issued or validated by a judicial authority of a Member State in accordance with Article 4(1), (2), (4) and (5), and addressed to a designated establishment or to a legal representative of a service provider offering services in the Union, where that designated establishment or legal representative is located in another Member State bound by this Regulation;

(2) ‘European Preservation Order’ means a decision which orders the preservation of electronic evidence for the purposes of a subsequent request for production, and which is issued or validated by a judicial authority of a Member State in accordance with Article 4(3), (4) and (5), and addressed to a designated establishment or to a legal representative of a service provider offering services in the Union, where that designated establishment or legal representative is located in another Member State bound by this Regulation;

(3) ‘service provider’ means any natural or legal person that provides one or more of the following categories of services, with the exception of financial services as referred to in Article 2(2), point (b), of Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council :

(a) electronic communications services as defined in Article 2, point (4), of Directive (EU) 2018/1972;

(b) internet domain name and IP numbering services, such as IP address assignment, domain name registry, domain name registrar and domain name-related privacy and proxy services;

(c) other information society services as referred to in Article 1(1), point (b), of Directive (EU) 2015/1535 that:

(i) enable their users to communicate with each other; or (ii) make it possible to store or otherwise process data on behalf of the users to whom the service is provided, provided that the storage of data is a defining component of the service provided to the user;

(4) ‘offering services in the Union’ means:

(a) enabling natural or legal persons in a Member State to use the services listed in point (3); and (b) having a substantial connection, based on specific factual criteria, to the Member State referred to in point (a); such a substantial connection is to be considered to exist where the service provider has an establishment in a Member State, or, in the absence of such an establishment, where there is a significant number of users in one or more Member States, or where there is targeting of activities towards one or more Member States;

(5) ‘establishment’ means an entity that actually pursues an economic activity for an indefinite period through a stable infrastructure from where the business of providing services is carried out or the business is managed;

(6) ‘designated establishment’ means an establishment with legal personality designated in writing by a service provider established in a Member State taking part in a legal instrument referred to in Article 1(2) of Directive (EU) 2023/1544, for the purposes referred to in Article 1(1) and Article 3(1) of that Directive;

(7) ‘legal representative’ means a natural or legal person appointed in writing by a service provider not established in a Member State taking part in a legal instrument referred to in Article 1(2) of Directive (EU) 2023/1544, for the purposes referred to in Article 1(1) and Article 3(1) of that Directive;

(8) ‘electronic evidence’ means subscriber data, traffic data or content data stored by or on behalf of a service provider, in an electronic form, at the time of the receipt of a European Production Order Certificate (EPOC) or of a European Preservation Order Certificate (EPOC-PR);

(9) ‘subscriber data’ means any data held by a service provider relating to the subscription to its services, pertaining to:

(a) the identity of a subscriber or customer, such as the provided name, date of birth, postal or geographic address, billing and payment data, telephone number, or email address;

(b) the type of service and its duration, including technical data and data identifying related technical measures or interfaces used by or provided to the subscriber or customer at the moment of initial registration or activation, and data related to the validation of the use of the service, excluding passwords or other authentication means used instead of a password that are provided by a user, or created at the request of a user;

(10) ‘data requested for the sole purpose of identifying the user’ means IP addresses and, where necessary, the relevant source ports and time stamp, namely the date and time, or technical equivalents of those identifiers and related information, where requested by law enforcement authorities or by judicial authorities for the sole purpose of identifying the user in a specific criminal investigation;

(11) ‘traffic data’ means data related to the provision of a service offered by a service provider which serve to provide context or additional information about such service and are generated or processed by an information system of the service provider, such as the source and destination of a message or another type of interaction, the location of the device, date, time, duration, size, route, format, the protocol used and the type of compression, and other electronic communications metadata and data, other than subscriber data, relating to the commencement and termination of a user access session to a service, such as the date and time of use, the log-in to and log-off from the service;

(12) ‘content data’ means any data in a digital format, such as text, voice, videos, images and sound, other than subscriber data or traffic data;

(13) ‘information system’ means an information system as defined in Article 2, point (a), of Directive 2013/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ;

(14) ‘issuing State’ means the Member State in which the European Production Order or the European Preservation Order is issued;

(15) ‘issuing authority’ means the competent authority in the issuing State, which, in accordance with Article 4, can issue a European Production Order or a European Preservation Order;

(16) ‘enforcing State’ means the Member State in which the designated establishment is established or the legal representative resides and to which a European Production Order and an EPOC or a European Preservation Order and an EPOC-PR are transmitted by the issuing authority for notification or for enforcement in accordance with this Regulation;

(17) ‘enforcing authority’ means the authority in the enforcing State, which, in accordance with the national law of that State, is competent to receive a European Production Order and an EPOC or a European Preservation Order and an EPOC-PR transmitted by the issuing authority for notification or for enforcement in accordance with this Regulation;

(18) ‘emergency case’ means a situation in which there is an imminent threat to the life, physical integrity or safety of a person, or to a critical infrastructure, as defined in Article 2, point (a), of Directive 2008/114/EC, where the disruption or destruction of such critical infrastructure would result in an imminent threat to the life, physical integrity or safety of a person, including through serious harm to the provision of basic supplies to the population or to the exercise of the core functions of the State;

(19) ‘controller’ means controller as defined in Article 4, point (7), of Regulation (EU) 2016/679;

(20) ‘processor’ means processor as defined in Article 4, point (8), of Regulation (EU) 2016/679;

(21) ‘decentralised IT system’ means a network of IT systems and interoperable access points, operating under the individual responsibility and management of each Member State, Union agency or body, which enables the cross-border exchange of information to take place in a secure and reliable manner.