Constitutional complaint against Palantir deployment in Bavaria

On Wednesday, the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF) filed a constitutional complaint against the extensive data mining practices of the Bavarian police. Covered by the Bavarian Police Duties Act (BayPAG), the “cross-procedural research and analysis platform” (VeRA), which is based on Palantir's Gotham surveillance software, sifts through immense amounts of data and makes connections in the process, according to the civil rights organization. These could also affect people without any connection to criminal offenses.

Such far-reaching big data analyses violate fundamental rights, in particular informational self-determination and telecommunications secrecy, the GFF complains. It aims to set stricter limits on the use of such instruments. Even someone who reports a crime, becomes the victim of a crime, or is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time could be targeted by the police using this software.

VeRA secretly analyzes citizens' data, which can lead to further surveillance measures. The current Bavarian regulation allows the police to use this software not only for serious crimes but even preventively –i.e., before a concrete danger exists. In fact, police officers also use the platform for property crimes, for example. The GFF criticizes the lack of effective control mechanisms and safeguards against software errors.

Guidelines from Karlsruhe disregarded

The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) supports the constitutional complaint. “Palantir's dragnet search covers an enormous number of people,” argues CCC spokesperson Constanze Kurz. “Previously separate data that was intended for very different purposes is now being linked together.” For this reason alone, automated mass analysis should not become part of everyday police work.

In addition, this combined information ends up “in a deliberately opaque software” from Palantir, which makes the police dependent on it for years to come. These are clear exclusion criteria for police operations.

The HessenData solution and the increasingly expensive system for cross-database analysis and evaluation (DAR) of the North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) police are also based on Gotham. The Federal Constitutional Court has already declared the use of automated data analysis by investigators in Hesse and Hamburg to be unconstitutional in its current form. The GFF, which has also become active here, complains that the Bavarian legislature has not complied with the surveillance limits that have been set. A further constitutional complaint by the organization against the NRW Police Act is pending.

There is opposition in several countries to the nationwide use of Palantir's data platform for law enforcement purposes. The US company has been criticized as a “key company in the surveillance industry.”

(vbr)