After FDP withdrawal: Faeser wants to push through data retention

Following the withdrawal of the "traffic light" coalition and the departure of the FDP from the federal government, Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) sees a good chance of getting a project that is close to her heart through before the new Bundestag elections on February 23: the retention of IP addresses and port numbers without suspicion. "I am crystal clear in my position: we need this data," she emphasized on Wednesday at the autumn conference of the Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden. "They are often the only way to get justice for the victims of the most serious crimes and to identify the perpetrators."

"Serious criminals get away with it because we – without need – take away the tools we could use to catch them," Faeser explained in her speech. Despite this, it was not possible to reintroduce the logging of user traces during the Ampel period, "particularly because of a coalition partner". She focused on the FDP: Former Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann from the Liberals put forward a counter-proposal for freezing traffic data in cases of suspicion early on and stuck to it until the end.

Faeser is also pushing ahead with facial recognition

The federal government actually agreed on this quick-freeze approach, but Faeser was not prepared to accept this. "I'm not giving up yet, we still have a bit of time," Faeser emphasized at the BKA. She is also holding talks with the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag in order to resolve the issue before the election. There she is knocking down open doors. In a motion, the conservatives have advocated the introduction of data retention for IP addresses. They have also already signaled that they will vote for it in parliament together with the SPD. According to Faeser, there is an urgent need to end the discussion about the framework conditions and use the corridors that the European Court of Justice has pointed out.

The German law enforcement authorities were lagging behind other countries in terms of technology and powers, the Minister emphasized. Most EU countries had "long since come up with solutions" for data retention, which is the counterpart to police access to analogue civil registers. The USA is also further ahead. There, artificial intelligence (AI) is already writing police reports or listening for gunshots in public spaces. AI is important for the police to be able to efficiently evaluate the increasing amounts of data. However, it should never be misused as a pretext for mass surveillance or for unjustified encroachments on fundamental rights. Nevertheless, Faeser once again called for investigators to be able to use biometric facial recognition in order to track down terrorists, for example. A corresponding proposal as part of the "security package" was blocked by the CDU/CSU-led federal states via the Bundesrat, as it did not go far enough for them. Faeser hopes that an agreement will be reached in the near future.

(nen)