consent
noun · Zustimmung
Zustimmung as the umbrella, and German time-stamps the species, prior consent is die Einwilligung, § 183 BGB, approval after the act die Genehmigung, § 184 BGB, reaching back to day one. Data protection and medicine insist on Einwilligung by name, so user consent as Nutzerzustimmung misses the statute’s own vocabulary.
Which translation, when
Why
German architecture starts in §§ 182 ff. BGB, Zustimmung as the umbrella and the clock inside the species, die Einwilligung is the prior consent, revocable until the transaction happens unless the underlying relationship provides otherwise, § 183 BGB, die Genehmigung the subsequent approval, reaching back to the day of the act, § 184 BGB, which is exactly what the hanging contracts of German law wait for. Two regimes then insist on Einwilligung by name whatever the timing, data protection, where the GDPR defines it as the freely given, informed and unambiguous indication, Art. 4 Nr. 11 DSGVO, with the conditions and the anytime withdrawal of Art. 7 DSGVO, and treatment medicine, § 630d BGB. The withdrawal rules split by regime and the split is worth money, the GDPR Einwilligung can be withdrawn at any time, Art. 7 Abs. 3 DSGVO, the BGB Einwilligung as a rule only until the act occurs, § 183 BGB, one English word, two clocks. In contracts, meanwhile, prior written consent translates comfortably as vorherige schriftliche Zustimmung, the umbrella doing honest work in consent-and-approval clauses.
Typical mistakes
- Nutzerzustimmung in a privacy text misses the term of art, the GDPR runs on Einwilligung, Art. 4 Nr. 11, Art. 7 DSGVO, and audits search for the word the regulation uses.
- The clock is in the noun, Einwilligung comes before the act and is, as a rule, revocable until it happens, § 183 BGB, Genehmigung comes after and reaches back, § 184 BGB, so translating approval without the timing picks a legal effect at random.
- Revocability differs by regime, the GDPR Einwilligung can be withdrawn at any time, Art. 7 Abs. 3 DSGVO, the BGB Einwilligung as a rule only until the transaction happens, § 183 BGB, one word, two clocks.
What matters
Privacy notices decide the noun early: the user’s consent is die Einwilligung, Art. 4 Nr. 11 DSGVO, withdrawable at any time, Art. 7 Abs. 3 DSGVO, while the landlord’s consent to subletting is die Zustimmung and the principal’s after-the-fact blessing die Genehmigung, § 184 BGB. The version that says Zustimmung everywhere reads fluent and fails the one audit that checks vocabulary.
What the machine misses
Consent flattens into Zustimmung in machine output whatever regime the sentence lives in, and two German worlds insist on their own species, data protection and medicine run on Einwilligung, after-the-fact approval is Genehmigung with retroactive force. The flattened version reads perfectly natural, which is the problem, the audit searching for the statutory word finds it missing and the timing rules ride in unnoticed.
Examples
| prior written consent | die vorherige schriftliche Zustimmung |
| consent to data processing | die Einwilligung in die Datenverarbeitung |
| to withdraw consent | die Einwilligung widerrufen |
| subject to the consent of | vorbehaltlich der Zustimmung von |