Legal

What "status" means here

"Halal" has no legal definition in Germany or at EU level. No harmonised EU definition exists; the only binding constraint is the general prohibition on misleading labelling under Regulation (EU) 1169/2011. A business may therefore lawfully call itself halal with no certification whatsoever.

Self-declaration is not misconduct and is presented neutrally here. This app does not judge whether a venue is halal — it shows what evidence exists.

Certifiers certify products, not restaurants

The bodies operating in Germany (HALAL CONTROL, HQC, EHZ, HCG) certify products, production sites and slaughterhouses. A restaurant almost never holds its own certificate. The strongest supportable claim is usually: "This venue states it sources from Supplier X, which holds certificate no. …"

Photos and GDPR

Uploaded photos may capture uninvolved people. We strip EXIF (including GPS) before storage, require confirmation that no identifiable third parties are shown, and give moderators a reject-for-faces action. Article 17 erasure requests cascade to uploaded images.

Stunning

Whether stunning is acceptable is contested between schools of thought and certifiers — EHZ certifies only where the animal does not die from stunning; others reject it entirely. We store this neutrally and it does not affect ranking or status.

Photos and image rights

We display only openly licensed photos (Wikimedia Commons, Mapillary — both CC BY-SA), credited directly on the image. That currently covers very few venues.

Google Maps photos are deliberately not used. The Google Places API terms prohibit caching or redistributing content, and the images belong to the photographers who took them. We also do not copy photos from venues' own websites — we have no licence to do so. We link to the venue's website instead.

Linking

Links to venue websites, phone numbers and map services are plain references. Operators of linked sites are responsible for their own content.

Operator objections

Businesses may object to any status. A substantiated objection freezes the status as "disputed" rather than downgrading it.

Map data

Venue data comes from OpenStreetMap under the ODbL. Every imported record keeps its OSM ID for provenance.

Still required before launch: DDG Impressum, full privacy policy, terms of service, documented notice-and-takedown procedure.