Safety on Rails: The Railway is Upgrading – Data Protectionists Urge Caution

Following a series of disturbing incidents, safety on German trains is high on the political agenda. The fatal attack on a train conductor near Landstuhl in early February, in particular, has accelerated the debate on staff protection. In response to the violence, Deutsche Bahn (DB) adopted an action plan at a security summit in Berlin on Friday. One element is the equipping of all customer-facing employees in local and long-distance transport, as well as at train stations, with bodycams. Politicians and DB management see this as an effective means of de-escalation. However, data protectionists warn of a creeping total surveillance in public spaces.

Alexander Roßnagel, the Hessian Data Protection Commissioner, who is responsible for the DB subsidiaries based in Frankfurt, emphasizes the tightrope walk between security and fundamental rights protection. The protection of life and limb is a high legal good, the controller explained to the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND). However, the use of bodycams also represents an intensive intrusion into the privacy of travelers.

From the perspective of the supervisory authorities, comprehensive continuous surveillance is therefore not permissible. Instead, recordings must remain strictly case-related and be reduced to the absolute minimum necessary. Data processing must meet the highest legal requirements so that the cameras do not mutate into an instrument of general behavioral control.

Between Prevention and Surveillance Pressure

The Stiftung Datenschutz (Data Protection Foundation) expresses similar concerns. Its scientific director, Kirsten Bock, takes issue with "incidental findings" in the recordings. If the cameras were to run continuously, innocent passengers could potentially come under police investigation without cause. This could lead to uninvolved individuals having to defend themselves against evidence in an emergency, simply because they happened to be in the camera's field of view.

The experts' demand is therefore unequivocal: recording should only be started after explicit notification by the staff. This approach has proven successful in other transport companies, as the mere mention of the recording starting often has a de-escalating effect.

The idea of a bodycam offensive is not new; the railway experimented with pilot projects a decade ago. However, the technical implementation remains complex. Thomas Fuchs, the Hamburg Data Protection Commissioner, refers to Spiegel Online to the ring buffer model, as used by Hamburger Hochbahn. There, recordings are automatically overwritten after 120 seconds unless employees manually mark them for permanent storage. Such short retention periods are essential to prevent the creation of movement profiles of passengers.

Political Debate on Technology and Personnel

Within trade unions and politics, the assessment of the project is divided. The Eisenbahn- und Verkehrsgewerkschaft (Railway and Transport Union) additionally insists on the recording of audio tracks in order to be able to document verbal aggression and insults in a legally sound manner. Data protectionists like Dieter Kugelmann, the Data Protection Commissioner of Rhineland-Palatinate, see this as an escalation of the intrusion. He suggests instead limiting the use of cameras spatially and temporally to known problem routes.

At the political level, the initiative receives support, for example from the CDU. Their interior expert Alexander Throm also urges a modernization of the Federal Police Act in order to be able to use AI-supported video technology for early detection of dangers.

Criticism comes from Die Linke (The Left party), which wants to focus more on staffing and federal funding. Security is a public task that cannot be solved by technology alone, the opposition party states. Marit Hansen, the Data Protection Commissioner of Schleswig-Holstein, also expresses doubts about the purely technical approach. No camera can physically prevent a targeted attack on life and limb. She suggests a classic solution: more personnel on the trains. In her view, a service in double patrols would often be more effective than electronic upgrades.

The railway now faces a challenge. It must design the initiative in such a way that it improves employee protection without jeopardizing passengers' trust in data protection.

(nie)