Surveillance in Berlin: When AI reports "loitering without reason"

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The Berlin police are preparing for the widespread use of algorithms in public spaces to increase security at vulnerable sites and hotspots. As Interior Secretary Christian Hochgrebe (SPD) and Police President Barbara Slowik explained on Monday in the Interior Committee of the House of Representatives, cameras with artificial intelligence (AI) will not only monitor Kottbusser Tor, in and around Görlitzer Park, and Alexanderplatz in the future, but also the immediate vicinity of the Rotes Rathaus, the House of Representatives, and the Senate Department for the Interior at the Altes Stadthaus.

The primary goal of the security authorities is to relieve personnel, according to media such as taz or rbb. Currently, object protection tasks reportedly tie up around 400 fully trained police officers who are deployed in addition to regular security forces. According to Slowik, this situation is not sustainable in the long term given the tight personnel resources. Therefore, modern technology must support protection tasks.

According to the tender for the 2.1 million euro project, the technical implementation involves AI systems evaluating images in real-time and raising alarms in defined scenarios. Essential tasks of the software include recognizing people climbing over fences, entering restricted areas, or leaving objects unattended.

The tender documents contain formulations that cause concern among civil rights advocates. For example, the technology is also supposed to detect "loitering or walking around for no reason" and "repeated appearances." While the police emphasize that biometric identification is excluded and all data is processed anonymously, the definition of "unjustified" behavior remains largely at the discretion of the software programming. According to the specifications, the false alarm rate can be up to 25 percent – which is quite high. The one-year test operation is intended to train the algorithms and improve the quality of detection.

Members of Parliament as "Guinea Pigs"

In the political arena, the project is meeting with resistance, particularly regarding the upgrade of electronic eyes around the parliament. Left-wing politician Niklas Schrader considers the approach an affront to democratic control. It is problematic if the executive equips its own control body, the House of Representatives, with surveillance technology without prior debate. Schrader warns of a deterrent effect on citizens seeking dialogue with their representatives. Furthermore, the question arises as to why the members of parliament should serve as "guinea pigs" for police AI experiments without their consent.

Berlin's data protection officer, Meike Kamp, urges that any expansion of video surveillance requires a strict assessment of proportionality and necessity, and that the duty to inform citizens must be upheld.

Infrastructure of General Suspicion

In parallel with object protection, the police are advancing AI upgrades at so-called crime hotspots. From July, the system at Kottbusser Tor will provide live images, followed by Warschauer Brücke. Here, the AI's focus is on detecting physical violence such as hitting or kicking, as well as identifying fallen persons. The costs for this part of the project alone are expected to amount to almost four million euros by 2028.

Critical voices, including the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), doubt the scientific effectiveness of such systems. They refer to previous pilot projects, such as at Südkreuz station, which yielded little security benefit at high costs. There is concern that a mathematical normalization of behavior marks any individuality in public spaces as a potential risk, thus creating an infrastructure of general suspicion.

Security Policy Turning Point

In an appeal, the CCC calls for the immediate cessation of such projects. The hacker association points out that it remains completely unclear how the police and manufacturers define "undesirable behavior." Whether a hurried run to the platform, a prolonged pause at a corner, or an embrace are already considered anomalies is beyond public comprehension and scientific control.

For the federal capital, the project marks a turning point in security policy. So far, cameras there have primarily focused on public transport. Video surveillance of streets and squares was previously the exception. Now, this step is even to be coupled with a "behavior scanner," which is particularly controversial. The Berlin Police Act, recently amended by the Black-Red coalition, provides the basis for data recorded in public spaces of uninvolved passers-by to be used to train and optimize commercial surveillance software.

(akn)