Electronic communication
General conditions for electronic communication with the city administration of Kevelaer
Electronic messages are being used more and more as a matter of course in everyday business life. This form of electronic communication saves time for both the sender and the recipient. The Kevelaer municipal administration offers the option of electronic communication via e-mail and De-Mail as well as via online procedures and online forms.
The following options are available for electronic communication with the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer:
- Use of the e-mail and De-Mail addresses currently published at www.kevelaer.de,
- Use of all e-mail and De-Mail addresses specified in municipal letterheads for replies to the respective letter,
- use of the online procedures and forms offered at www.kevelaer.de, provided they send this data to the city administration.
E-mail security
Unencrypted e-mails can be intercepted and read or modified by third parties on their way through the Internet.
Confidential data should therefore never be sent by unencrypted e-mail!
Encrypted emails can be sent to the city administration via the central address vps@kevelaer.de. You can download the public certificate (S/MIME) required for encryption in the download area. Information on e-mail encryption and the integration and use of S/MIME certificates can be found in the user manual of your e-mail program.
De-Mail security
De-Mails are encrypted during transmission and are thus sufficiently protected against unauthorized reading and manipulation. For this reason, the city administration does not offer an additional encryption method for De-Mail. The transmission of electronic documents is possible for both informal and formal processes.
Informal processes
Processes that do not require a handwritten signature in correspondence can be submitted via all of the above access points.
Form-related processes
Transactions that require a handwritten signature in correspondence may, unless otherwise stipulated by law, be submitted in writing by
- as a PDF with a qualified electronic signature in accordance with Article 3 No. 12 of Regulation(EU) No. 910/2014 (eIDAS Regulation) and sent by e-mail or De-Mail, or
- by sending them by De-Mail with the sending option pursuant to Section 5 ( 5) De-Mail-G(sender-confirmed De-Mail).
If submitted documents cannot be processed by the city administration, you will be informed accordingly. In this case, legal deadlines will not be set in motion or observed.
Legally binding e-mails
Opening of access for legally binding communication with the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer
The city administration of Kevelaer opens electronic access (the transmission of electronic documents) to the pilgrimage city of Kevelaer for legally binding electronic communication between citizens, legal entities under private and public law and the city administration within the meaning of § 3 a VwVfG NRW under the following conditions:
The legally binding nature of the transmission of information in electronic form to the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer is governed by the provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act(VwVfG) as amended.
If a process is required by law to be in writing, this correspondence previously had to be signed personally and then brought or sent to the town hall in order for the process to be legally binding. From now on, however, it is also possible to send legally binding e-mails via the central e-mail address
can be sent to the city of pilgrimage. This saves trips to the town hall.
The transmission of e-mails to the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer is possible for both informal and formal correspondence via the following e-mail address:
If you send us a De-Mail, we will assume that you also wish to receive a reply to this matter by De-Mail.
Documents and messages that are not sent to the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer via the electronic access described in the virtual mailroom do not meet the requirements of legally binding electronic communication and therefore do not replace a handwritten signature. Examples of insufficient transmissions in this respect are, for example, scanned signatures.
Compliance with and observance of the General Data Protection Regulation(GDPR) and the Data Protection Act of North Rhine-Westphalia, as amended, is assumed.
Scope of application
The framework conditions for legally binding electronic communication apply exclusively to contacting the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer and not to communication with municipal companies such as the municipal utilities. It is therefore expressly pointed out that electronic access has not yet been opened for Stadtwerke Kevelaer.
The submission of electronic tenders in response to invitations to tender issued by the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer is also excluded from the framework conditions. There are separate procedures and regulations for this.
Further information on electronic communication
If you send emails or emails with file attachments to the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer, please note that the pilgrimage town of Kevelaer cannot receive files with executable content for security reasons. For example, file attachments in Word or Excel format are automatically deleted from a message. The sender and recipient of the message will be informed about the deletion of an attachment.
Preferably send your documents as a PDF file.
The following file formats can currently be delivered:
- Adobe Acrobat version 6 or higher (PDF version 1.5) (.pdf)
- Joint Picture Export Group (.jpg or .jpeg)
- Graphics Interchange Format (.gif)
- Portable Network Graphics (.png)
- Windows Bitmap (.bmp)
- Tagged Image Files (.tif)
- Text format(.txt)
- OpenOffice text, spreadsheet and presentation documents as long as they do not contain macros or embedded objects (OLE) (*.odt, *.ods, *odp)
Mail size / data volume
The total size of e-mails to the city administration, including all attachments, is limited to 35 MB. Larger e-mails will not be accepted.
Please note that attachments in a binary format can become larger when sent by e-mail, as they are converted into ASCII text for sending by e-mail.
The total size of e-mails is limited to 10 MB due to the system.
Viruses & SPAM
E-mails containing file attachments that are classified as infected by the virus protection program or that cannot be scanned by the virus protection program are deleted unread. You will not receive any information about this.
E-mails sent via mail servers that also send a lot of unwanted advertising (SPAM) will not be accepted. You will receive a message about this. In these cases, please contact your e-mail service provider.
Security of online procedures and forms
The exchange of data via online procedures and forms offered at www.kevelaer.de is always encrypted (HTTPS/SSL) and is thus protected against interception and manipulation.
Questions or problems with use?
If you have any questions about encryption and electronic signatures, please contact the "Central Services - Information Technology" department of Kevelaer town council.