Federal Council calls for rapid deployment for the police

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Bavaria has completed the pilot operation of the Palantir software for its "cross-procedural search and analysis platform" (VeRA). VeRA has been in live operation since December 25, 2024. This was announced by a spokesperson for the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior at the request of heise online. The technology from Bavaria could be made available to the entire German police force via a framework agreement that has already been concluded. The Federal Council is now calling for its use as an interim solution.

The pilot operation of VeRA therefore ran from September 2, 2024 up to and including December 24, 2024. Bavaria has now connected its case processing system (VBS), its case processing system (FBS), the Bavarian police's search database (INPOL-Land-Bayern) and the correspondence relevant to police storage (EPost – is used for nationwide message exchange) as sources for an automated query via VeRA. In addition, "procedurally relevant data fields from the operations control system (ELS) and the program for processing traffic offences (ProVi) have also been connected and made available for analysis". The database in the system can be expanded: "The connection of further data sources depends on the technical requirements of the analysis services."

On the way to the federal VeRA

The Bavarian police want to pave the way for Palantir. However, the plans for the "Bundes-VeRA" had been put on hold in the meantime when the interior ministries of some federal states rejected the monitoring system and the Federal Ministry of the Interior also decided to create its own research and analysis platform for the police instead of Palantir.

This platform does not yet exist. The current priority in the Police 20 program is to get the participants' data into the P20 data warehouse, a spokeswoman for the BMI said in response to questions from heise online on 7 March 2025. As long as this data transfer had not taken place, a corresponding service for evaluation and analysis would not take place, "the development of the evaluation and analysis service (has) been postponed until the transfer of the data has made further progress". There are "currently no plans to use 'a Palantir solution as an interim solution' for data analysis in the federal government".

Now, in a resolution dated March 21, 2025, the Federal Council is calling for precisely this interim solution in order to "immediately close the gaps in the capabilities of the federal and state police forces in terms of information processing, data consolidation and analysis".

The Federal Council explicitly points out that "in the recent past, people with mental health problems have often come to light as perpetrators of violent crimes. In order to better identify and record such serious crimes, personal behavioural patterns and risks must be identified, analyzed and evaluated in good time".

The large-scale Police 20 IT project is only making slow progress; the digitally networked police force could have its own fully operational police data warehouse from 2030 at the earliest. Until then, "the short-term central provision of a jointly operated data analysis platform, as used by some state police forces" should make an important contribution to "targeted data analysis for effective danger prevention and law enforcement", the Federal Council demands. Nationwide, "findings between security, health, weapons and, if necessary, immigration authorities" are to be networked.

Palantir is currently used as a platform by the police in Bavaria (cross-procedural research and analysis platform – VeRA), North Rhine-Westphalia (cross-database research and analysis – DAR) and Hesse (HessenDATA).

Although the Federal Council does not explicitly name the company Palantir, it calls on the federal government to "resume the activities already planned in 2023 for a jointly financed, centrally operated, legally permissible interim solution for an automated data analysis platform in the Police 20/20 program, from which the federal government withdrew in May 2023".

Amendment of the Code of Criminal Procedure for data analysis

In order to be able to use automated data evaluation and analysis for criminal prosecution, the Federal Council is calling on the Federal Government to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) "in order to close existing regulatory gaps for the prosecution of criminal offenses and to comply with analogous constitutional case law for the preventive area". Without amending the StPO, the use of a nationwide (interim) platform is not possible.

In fact, the Federal Ministry of Justice has already had an application from the justice ministers of the federal states for a few months, which is currently still being examined, as a spokesperson for the Federal Ministry of Justice informed heise online when asked. At their autumn conference on November 28, 2024, the justice ministers discussed the"use of cross-procedural research and analysis platforms in investigative proceedings" and subsequently asked the Federal Minister of Justice to examine the question of "to what extent or under what conditions a legally secure criminal procedural use of corresponding software for investigative purposes can be made possible and whether this would require a change in the law".

The "imminent danger" of Palantir under scrutiny

Palantir may currently only be used in the context of averting danger. Whether and under what conditions the police are allowed to carry out automated data evaluation and analysis is generally regulated by the federal states and, at federal level, by the Federal Ministry of the Interior (Federal Criminal Police Office/Federal Police) and in the relevant laws on averting danger and in the police laws.

Most recently, the Federal Council put the brakes on the original surveillance security package to combat terrorism, the original version of which also provided for big data analyses using artificial intelligence and the merging of police databases in the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Police. On January 30, 2025, the draft of a new "Act to Strengthen Police Powers" was debated in the Bundestag at first reading, which again provides for regulations on automated data analysis in the Federal Criminal Police Office Act and Federal Police Act, including amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The rules on data analysis in the police force have repeatedly been the subject of a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court. Now the Bavarian Constitutional Court also had to examine whether the legal basis for the use of Palantir for automated data evaluation and analysis in the run-up to a threat (i.e. without the need for a specific acute threat) is compatible with the constitution of the Free State of Bavaria. Specifically, it concerned the interpretation of "imminent danger" in the Bavarian Police Duties Act (PAG).

The decision of March 13, 2025 reads: The use of Palantir to avert danger remains permitted in principle – but only under strict conditions. In each case, the police must check very carefully whether there are concrete, comprehensible facts of an imminent danger in order to be allowed to use the software. Vague assumptions, general risk assessments or mere suspicions are not sufficient.

(mho)