Fatal click at BfV: Online research destroys existence

Imagine sitting at your desk at a Berlin university, doing your work, and being called to a conference room shortly before the end of the workday. There, your superiors inform you not of a salary increase, but of your immediate dismissal. The reason sounds like something out of a bad spy movie: you are allegedly the operator of a racist and antisemitic dating portal for right-wing extremists. What seems like an absurd misunderstanding became a life-threatening reality for Berlin resident Liv Heide. The trigger: blatant failure of German security authorities.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV) had erroneously targeted the now 59-year-old woman as a radical right-wing extremist for over two years, reports Die Zeit. Investigators from the Internet Procurement department reportedly came across her name on the website of the Berlin School of Economics and Law (HWR) in the capital in 2022 and drew a fatal conclusion: she must be identical to the “Liv Heide” who operated the portal “WhiteDate.net” online and communicated via email from there. This platform served as “Parship for Nazis,” where National Socialists and fascists networked to conceive “white children.”

Hacker attack and race war fantasies

Meanwhile, the questionable dating portal had long since attracted the attention of entirely different actors. During the 39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3) in Hamburg at the end of December, an activist using the pseudonym Martha Root hacked the platform live. With a kind of digital clear-cutting, she not only disabled the site's functions but also deleted the data of around 8,000 members. Among the users who now have to search for like-minded individuals elsewhere were, according to the leaks, an AfD member of the Hamburg Parliament, among others.

The portal was founded in 2017 by Christiane H. The woman, who lives near Kiel, pursued the goal of “reviving the exclusive white community,” as Die Zeit writes. In right-wing extremist media portals, she harbored no illusions about her radicalism and had already openly ranted about an impending “race war.” The fact that the agents confused this very person with the unblemished Berlin university employee sheds a revealing light on the domestic intelligence service's online research quality.

Official stubbornness despite exposure

The real Liv Heide, a former actress and aspiring novelist, had even proactively pointed out the importance of diversity and respect in her vita to avoid being confused with the alleged namesake. But the BfV operatives ignored this aspect. In a status report, the authority claimed instead that the woman had been “clearly identified.” The Berlin State Office for the Protection of the Constitution, informed by this information, then forwarded it to the university with an official seal.

The consequence was immediate dismissal in July 2024, without the university management hearing the affected person beforehand. In the world of intelligence agencies, a vague suspicion turned into apparent certainty through mere data transmission, shattering a civilian existence. Liv Heide suddenly stood branded as a neo-Nazi, lost her income, and her faith in the rule of law. Only after massive legal pressure and an objection did the Berlin State Office relent in October 2024. It admitted that the suspicion had meanwhile “hardened into certainty” that a third person had appeared under this name.

However, this helped Heide little, as her former workplace had already been filled. The victim of the official error now works in a furniture store and is trying to piece her own life back together. The real right-wing extremist, meanwhile, continues to live unmolested in northern Germany.

(mho)