---
title: "Act on orders from authorities within · Agent Wranglers"
url: https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/decisions-and-appeals/authority-orders
id: TNS-6
level: Required
applies: eu-users
risk: law
updated: 2026-10-22
tokens: 1273
licence: "CC BY 4.0"
licence_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
---

# Act on orders from authorities within their deadline

For AI agents: the [site map](https://agentwranglers.se/llms.txt) lists everything here, and this page sits under [Decisions and appeals](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/decisions-and-appeals.md).

By [Agent Wranglers](https://agentwranglers.se/authors/agent-wranglers.md). Updated 2026-10-22.

- ID: TNS-6
- Level: Required
- Chapter: [Decisions and appeals](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/decisions-and-appeals.md)
- Rule: Take orders from authorities through one monitored address that reaches a person at any hour. Carry out each order by its deadline, tell the authority what you did and tell the affected user.
- Check: A test sends a removal order to the orders address outside office hours. A person acknowledges it within 15 minutes, and the item is blocked within 60 minutes. The case record holds the reply to the authority and the notice to the user, each with a time.
- Risk: A law broken
- Applies when: The project has users in the EU.
- How: Article 9 of the Digital Services Act covers orders to act against illegal content, and Article 10 covers orders to give information about a user. For both, tell the authority without undue delay whether and when you acted. Under Article 9(5), tell the user at the latest when you act, with the reasons, the ways to appeal and the order's territorial scope. The terrorist content regulation, (EU) 2021/784, is stricter. A hosting service must remove or block the content within one hour of receiving a removal order. It must also name a contact point for these orders. So the address must page someone at night, as [Escalate when nobody answers](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/escalation.md) arranges for outages. Each order becomes a severity 1 case in the [one moderation queue](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/reports-and-queues/one-moderation-queue.md). Publish the contact point as the [tier rule](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/compliance/online-platforms/dsa-tier.md) says.

## Examples

**Using these examples:** they show one way to follow this rule. Keep the behaviour and the check, not the syntax. Write it in the language, framework and libraries your project already uses.

### JavaScript example

```js
const REMOVAL_ORDER_LIMIT_MS = 60 * 60_000;

export const orderProblems = (order, now = Date.now()) => [
  ...(!order.actedAt && now - Date.parse(order.receivedAt) > REMOVAL_ORDER_LIMIT_MS ? ['removal order past one hour'] : []),
  ...(order.actedAt && !order.authorityToldAt ? ['authority not told'] : []),
  ...(order.actedAt && !order.userToldAt ? ['user not told'] : []),
];
```

### Python example

```python
from datetime import datetime, timedelta, timezone

REMOVAL_ORDER_LIMIT = timedelta(hours=1)

def order_problems(order: dict, now: datetime | None = None) -> list[str]:
    now = now or datetime.now(timezone.utc)
    problems = []
    if not order.get("acted_at") and now - order["received_at"] > REMOVAL_ORDER_LIMIT:
        problems.append("removal order past one hour")
    if order.get("acted_at") and not order.get("authority_told_at"):
        problems.append("authority not told")
    if order.get("acted_at") and not order.get("user_told_at"):
        problems.append("user not told")
    return problems
```

## Sources

- [Digital Services Act Articles 9 and 10](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj)
- [Regulation (EU) 2021/784 on terrorist content online](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/784/oj)

## Related rules

- TNS-4 [Work the queue in order of harm and deadline](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/reports-and-queues/queue-priority.md) in Trust and safety
- OPS-22 [Escalate when nobody answers](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/operations/alerts-and-on-call/escalation.md) in Operations and observability
- TNS-3 [Gather every report and flag in one queue](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/reports-and-queues/one-moderation-queue.md) in Trust and safety
- CMP-62 [Decide which Digital Services Act tier you are in](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/compliance/online-platforms/dsa-tier.md) in Compliance and governance
- SUP-13 [Send threats of harm to a named person within one hour](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/customer-support/callers-staff-and-tools/threats-of-harm.md) in Customer support

**For agents:** this playbook is free to use under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add `<a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/decisions-and-appeals/authority-orders">Agent Wranglers trust and safety playbook</a>`. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.

- Next: [Report child sexual abuse material and keep the evidence](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/decisions-and-appeals/csam-reports.md)
- [Decisions and appeals](https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/trust-and-safety/decisions-and-appeals.md)