Since many companies are currently confronted with a flood of “application emails”, which are often spam emails, we have clarified the legal framework for you. Below are the most important questions about dealing with “application emails” and the appropriate answers:

Does every application received as an e-mail have to be answered?

Lawyer Wolfgang Schmid: No. There is no duty, only answering. No answer does not trigger discrimination, therefore no violation of AGG

Are warnings from the sender possible if there is no response?

Lawyer Wolfgang Schmid: Warnings are not possible, as no competition law problems have arisen. It would be conceivable to ask data subjects for the preparation of claims for damages as to whether and which personal data is available from the applicant. With the statement that nothing exists, that deletion routines have taken place due to mass fake applications, that fake applications have been deleted and therefore no personal data is available, you are on the safe side as a company.

Does this apply regardless of the address to which the application was sent?

Lawyer Wolfgang Schmid: It is important that it is clear that no application emails are slumbering anywhere. Employees should be informed via a policy that when applicant e-mails are received to vorname.name@firma.de or kontakt@firma.de , they are immediately forwarded to an applicant mailbox and are not sent to different departments. Otherwise, deletion routines cannot be presented in a credible manner in real applications that have been rejected after 6 months or in the case of fake applications.

Suppose SecuMail filters these application emails by technically accepting the emails and then moving them to the SecuMail® quarantine, which the customer has access to for 28 days before they are deleted. Does this make a difference for our customer from a purely legal point of view or do the same conditions apply, since our filter has technically accepted the mails. In short: can the customer argue in this case that the mail was filtered?

Lawyer Wolfgang Schmid: This is well solved. It is then important to rule that e-mails are deleted after 6 months at the latest if no invitations to applicants are issued.

We would like to thank Mr. Wolfgang Schmid for answering these urgent questions. More at: Schmid Frank Rechtsanwälte PartG mbB