Disinfection control by target selection

A method for operating a cleaning device (112) or a cleaning system (110) is proposed. In this case, the cleaning device (112) is set up to carry out a cleaning process of an object with a germicidal effect. The method comprises the steps of: a) receiving information about a target germ with which the object could be contaminated; b) according to the target germ, at least one process parameter of the cleaning process is selected such that the target germ is killed in the cleaning process with high probability; and c) the cleaning process is carried out with the process parameter.