The professional code of German doctors says that doctors may not accept instructions from non-doctors on medical decisions. The Occupational Safety Act makes company doctors and safety specialists weisungsfrei, free of instructions, when they apply their expert knowledge. Company doctors are “subject only to their medical conscience.” A company’s data protection officer may receive no instructions on how to carry out the task. The Bundeswehr has a similar rule. A superior should not intervene in the medical or other specialist service of subordinates. The Federal Administrative Court explained in 2004 that the word “should” here means such intervention is forbidden in principle.