Digital dragnet: When images online destroy lives

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It sounds like an absurd joke from the digital world, but in November 2025 it was bitter reality on the website of the tabloid newspaper „Berliner Zeitung“. Under an official police wanted poster showing a young man in a drugstore, the headline proclaimed that a Pokémon card thief was being sought. Because the fan did not pay the nearly 10 euros for one of the coveted mini tin boxes in Brandenburg, the police resorted to a sharp sword of law enforcement: public wanted notices via the press.

In a post for the Grundrechte-Report 2026 (Basic Rights Report 2026), which Netzpolitik.org published upon the release of the "alternative report on the protection of the constitution", aspiring legal scholar Athena Möller puts her finger on the wound. With such minor offenses, she explains, the suspicion arises "that we are dealing with a disproportionate interference with the right to informational self-determination."

Publicly branded

Similar reports have often been found in the media over the past few months. The co-editor of the volume warns that this should not only alarm data protection advocates. The spectrum of people who could suddenly find themselves in the digital spotlight without their consent is broad. It ranges from witnesses and missing persons to suspects, among whom there are always wrongly accused individuals.

For example, in February, the Magdeburg police searched for a man who had pocketed a lost wallet in a supermarket using press appeals. As it turned out, he was an honest finder: the wallet had long been back in the hands of its rightful owner by the time the search began. Nevertheless, the high-resolution photos of the wrongly suspected individual can still be easily found on the internet today.

High hurdles of the StPO circumvented

The hurdles for such a measure are actually high. § 131b of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO), which regulates public wanted notices, explicitly refers to the constitutional principle of proportionality. This must be strictly observed. Accordingly, the publication of images is only permissible if the person is suspected of a criminal offense of significant importance, and the investigation would be significantly less promising or considerably more difficult by other means.

Furthermore, according to the Federal Constitutional Court, the offense must at least be attributable to the category of medium-level crime, seriously disrupt legal peace, and profoundly impair the public's sense of security. In the case of simple theft, these requirements are obviously not met.

Nevertheless, the requirements are increasingly being circumvented or questioned by certain groups. Möller recalls that representatives of the German Police Union and the AfD had criticized the current requirements as too restrictive. Valuable time is lost by the prescribed exhaustion of other investigative approaches. According to Möller, this argument is "ridiculously disproportionate to the fact that the condition for maintaining the rule-of-law character of an investigation is essential."

The statement by a Saxon union chairwoman, cited by the jurist, that citizens should trust the police to only hand over perpetrators to the press, also proves to be problematic. According to the author, this reveals a lack of awareness of the problem that the judiciary always works with innocent suspects until a final verdict and that image publications must remain the absolute exception.

Destructive power of the net

The fundamental rights risk posed by the investigative method increases with the growth of digital content and social interactions. Once an image is posted online, it is downloaded, duplicated, and shared worldwide in a matter of seconds. The police can neither track where the photo is circulating after a few hours nor guarantee its deletion if the wanted notice is withdrawn. The potential for defamation is now unprecedented, Möller complains. The legal situation, however, has stagnated for a quarter of a century. While official guidelines theoretically prohibit the involvement of private internet providers, they do permit the inclusion of the classic press. This distinction is completely outdated, as the online presence of media houses has long constituted the main part of reporting, and the use of social media is insufficiently regulated.

To curb these excesses, according to the article, legislative reforms by the Bundestag are necessary, as such profound infringements of fundamental rights should not be left to administrative regulations. One solution would be the precise delimitation of the concept of a criminal offense of significant importance, for example, by strictly limiting it to serious offenses against life, physical integrity, or personal freedom. Furthermore, a strong suspicion should be required instead of a simple one. The conditions for the use of social networks must also finally be legally regulated, according to the author. The chronic inaction of the legislator reflects an overload in the legal handling of digitalization.

(hos)