If I use a discount card at a German museum that I do not know isn&#39;t valid at that museum, but the museum accepts it, is that a crime? I live in Belgium and in August went to Dusseldorf on a weekend trip. As an autistic adult I have a EU Disability Card, which is a new trial project by the EU, which is only valid in 8 countries, one of which is Belgium. Germany notably isn't one of those countries. Still, I showed the card at the ticket booth for a local museum, the K20 museum for contemporary art, not knowing that the card was only valid in the 8 countries the trial is active in and thus wasn't yet in use in Germany. I assumed that given that it was a European project, it would be accepted as proof of disability, and I would get the 10 EUR discount ticket for disabled people instead of the full 12 EUR ticket for adults. The cashier apparently didn't know what to do with the card and waived my ticket price entirely. The question I have: is what I did considered a crime, like fraud or theft? or should I just not worry about this? After all, the museum did have a discounted ticket for disabled people, and that card was proof of my disability, just a proof that wasn't commonplace yet in Germany. The cashier was within her rights to give me the 2 EUR discount or refuse to accept the card, but instead she waived the ticket price entirely, so
No, it doesn't seem like you did anything wrong. You can't have committed fraud because you didn't have the intent of entering the museum without paying. Fraud is defined in section 263 StGB: (1) Whoever, with the intention of obtaining an unlawful pecuniary benefit for themselves or a third party, damages the assets of another by causing or maintaining an error under false pretences or distorting or suppressing true facts […] You had no intention of obtaining an unlawful benefit. You presumably did not misrepresent your disability status. German criminal law has a related violation in Section 265a StGB, “obtaining benefits by deception”: (1) Whoever obtains the output of a machine or the services of a telecommunications network which serves public purposes or uses a means of transportation or obtains entrance to an event or facility by deception with the intention of not paying the fee […] Again, your lack of intent means that you haven't committed this crime. Interpreting what actually happened: The K20 ticket fees are reduced for severely handicapped people with 50% GdB (degree of disability indicating the person's difficulty of participating in society, in particular that person's difficulty for working a normal job, as determined by the VersMedV). You were not attested such a degree of disability via the German system, and therefore were not eligible for the discounted entrace fee of EUR 10. The museum has no obligation towards you to actually collect those fees. They can waive them whenever they want, for whatever reason they want. The museum could have given you the discounted price even without suitable evidence of your disability. Instead, they waived the fee entirely. If anyone is going to have problems here, it is the person at the ticket counter for failing to collect the appropriate fees. But that is an internal issue for the museum. You legally obtained a valid ticket to visit the museum. Translations were taken from the official page https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html
There is no systemic process by which convictions of crime in Germany (at all, let alone for misdemeanors) are reported to authorities in Canada. This said, a Canadian charged with a crime in Germany has a right to consular assistance (i.e. to call upon the Canadian embassy for help). And, if the Canadian actually does obtain assistance from the Canadian government in defense of criminal charges and is convicted anyway, obviously, a Canadian government official will know about it. I don't know if Canadian diplomats who provide consular assistance who learn of criminal convictions of Canadians abroad report those convictions to criminal record database record keepers in Canada, although I suspect that they do not.
This sounds a bit far-fetched. There are laws against circumventing copy protection measures (DRM) but not against aimbotting (to the best of my knowledge). Thus, you cannot reasonably believe that a click-assist functionality would be used to break laws. It could definitely be used to break private contracts such as an EULA, but you are not a party to that contract and are not bound by its terms. Of course, when you use such click-assist tech in an online game, you might be breaking your contract with the game vendor or server provider. But this doesn't imply that a click-assist would be forbidden outside of that context. Note that assistive technologies sometimes have exceptions from laws, e.g. a permission to circumvent DRM if necessary for accessibility. In the US, the Librarian of Congress adopts exceptions for a duration of three years. While none of the current exceptions match your specific scenario involving video-games, it can be permissible to break DRM on e-books or videos for certain accessibility enhancements.
certain kinds of payments just are tax-free There are several kinds of tax-free special payments in germany, such as certain types of additional payments (for example &quot;Vermögenswirksame Leistungen&quot; and &quot;Steuerfreibeträge&quot;), or gifts within a certain value (e.g. goods/services up to 50 € a month). In this case, they most likely fully use the &quot;Inflationsausgleichsprämie&quot;, which is tax-free up to 3000 €.
This is likely to be a matter of policy rather than law That is, it’s not likely there is a law prohibiting it but it is highly likely that the person’s training and their employer’s policy on the matter is that they must complete a ticket once they start it. It’s a pretty universal anti-corruption measure - it prevents the situation where they are writing the ticket, the owner appears and offers them half the value of the fine in cash to stop: well, they can’t stop so they can’t be tempted by the bribe. Of course, the bribe can be offered before they start but, when fighting corruption, you minimise the opportunities rather than eliminate them. I know that police and rangers (private people can’t issue tickets) in new-south-wales are so restricted.
Art. 15(4) GDPR says: (4) The right to obtain a copy referred to in paragraph 3 shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others. If I was the controller in this situation, and I believed that this would endanger the students that have criticised the professor, I would base my argument for not complying on this. In addition, Art. 85 GDPR requires member states to: [...] reconcile the right to the protection of personal data pursuant to this Regulation with the right to freedom of expression and information [...] So you may be able to argue that the students posting messages are engaging in "processing for journalistic purposes and the purposes of academic, artistic or literary expression", depending on the laws of the particular member state. (edit: this could be difficult since you mention it is a private database). The second case seems just like the first in terms of GDPR, but may constitute defamation. Defamation (or libel) laws differ wildly in each country; he Wikipedia article on Defamation explains the situation in each member state in more detail. In the third case: if the professor submits a request based on the rights of a data subject other than himself, they don't need to comply. These requests need to come from the data subjects themselves, not just a random person assuming authority. (although I suppose it's possible for them to give power of attorney to the department head if they wanted to) Personal data and the rights that GDPR provides to data subjects always relate to a natural person, not an institution or a company.
at what point can you just leave? Is it always technically illegal in the UK to leave without paying the bill? Probably depends on what you mean with just leaving. If just leaving translates I haven't paid and I won't pay (because of the hassle with the card) then that's probably Making Off Without Payment, section 3 Theft Act 1978 (Thanks @bdsl). Could the restaurant just force you to wait until close of business if necessary? What if they still hadn't fixed the payment system by then? I don't think a restaurant can physically detain you. Not even the 45 min you have been waiting. But if you leave without paying and without an agreement with them how &amp; when to pay they can of course call the police because again that looks very much like making off without payment. According to your post, they did provide a payment system (cash) which was working all the time and that moreover has the special status of being legal tender. if you don't physically have the cash on you, you can be sued? You can be sued if you don't pay your bill (assuming the bill itself is correct) when it's due. In order to avoid endless hassle of the "I tried to pay via x, but they wouldn't accept this." type, legal tender defines ways of payment of a debt that the creditor/seller must accept. In many legislations, cash in the local currency provides such a fallback if other payment methods fail. Note that cash payment is very robust against internet failure, broken devices and power The UK (+ US) meaning of legal tender is that the restaurant must accept this means of settling the debt (at this time, the food is already eaten but not payed) - but they don't have to accept any other means of payment. (Note that e.g. for the EUR-countries there is at least a recommendation to make acceptance of legal tender mandatory also in retail, which includes simultaneous exchange food vs. payment). The 2nd important implication of this is that any argumentation along the lines that no reasonable means of payment were available would be very weak. You are not required to have sufficient cash with you to pay your bill if you can reasonably assume that some other way of payment will be acceptable to the restaurant. I see that like a spare wheel for a car: if you have a flat tire (card doesn't work) having a spare wheel (cash) allows you to deal with the issue with less hassle than if you don't: change your wheel vs. having to get your car brought to a workshop and wait until they put on a new tire (pay cash instead of waiting for the card to work again or a tedious hunt for another payment method). I'd like to point out that card doesn't work and not sufficient cash at hand (or forgotten purse) is something that happens quite often in general (rarely for any given transaction, but we have lots of transactions). I'd expect a restaurant or a gas station to be experienced in dealing with that. In any case, there are several possibilities to resolve the issue short of "just leaving": The key to all this is communication: talk to the restaurant to find a way to resolve the issue. Reassure them that you're not trying to use the opportunity to defraud them - that's what they are afraid of in this situation. "Where can I find an ATM?" Possibly offering a deposit: "And would you mind looking after my bag [phone] until I'm back?" Possibly showing them your ID card (or similar, if you have any) so they have your address: remember that so far you are an anonymous customer for them: which means that suing you for the money would be somewhere between too expensive and impossible. If you are a group, it should be sufficient if only one of you leaves in search of cash. Credit cards can be charged in a total offline way (MOTO = mail order/telephone order) where the credit card data is entered manually by the seller: the restaurant may be able to charge your credit card if fill in a paper credit card payment form. They may accept settlement via other payment systems: paypal &amp; Co. wire the money via your online banking account (even if that doesn't give an instantaneous transfer, ask them if that's OK with them if you show/forward them the "transfer accepted message" for now) allow them to withdraw the money from your account via direct debit or something similar I'd not expect a restaurant to accept this possibility as they're probably not familiar with it and it means a lot of hassle for them with their bank to get listed to receive money that way. if you are in a region where cheques are still in regular use, that may be a solution as well. Restaurants like any other business can write invoices. They usually don't like this because their risk of having costly trouble to get the money is high. While your printout bill is technically an invoice already, it can be turned into an invoice (+ copy for them) giving your name + address and specifying how and when you'll pay. Which would keep track of how you (pl. = you + restaurant) decided to settle the bill under the peculiar circumstances. This works even in case of e.g. a power outage that prevents you from getting cash from an ATM in the neighborhood.
switzerland This answer is mostly to point out that the situation isn't so obvious, and may greatly differ between jurisdictions. OR Art 7 specifies: 2 The sending of tariffs, price lists and the like does not constitute an offer. 3 By contrast, the display of merchandise with an indication of its price does generally constitute an offer. So the seller is bound to the price tag of an item in a shelf or in a window. If the prices differ, the customer can generally request the lower price, unless the seller can clearly show that there was a significant error. There's a separate law (&quot;Preisbekanntgabeverordnung&quot;) that specifies that (under most circumstances) a shop must put price tags on their items. What margin constitutes an error is disputable. The federal court ruled that an offer for an opal ring for 1380 Francs instead of 13800 could be considered an error. But a T-Shirt that is offered for 20 Francs in the shop window but 25 Francs on the shelf is probably not.