Real-time facial recognition: Growing concerns about biometric surveillance

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Federal and state police forces are increasingly using systems for automated facial recognition, sometimes in real time, based on questionable legal foundations. This has prompted lawyers and opposition politicians to call for more transparency and a stop to the measures. The German Bar Association (Deutscher Anwaltsverein, DAV), for example, is offended by the fact that law enforcement officers in Saxony and Berlin are secretly recording vehicle license plates and facial images of drivers using a powerful observation system and comparing them with a wanted persons file. "The authorities" in the Free State and the capital are keeping quiet about the specific use of the surveillance technology, complains Saleh Ihwas, an expert in security law at the DAV. "This is worrying because we are talking about a system that interferes with the right to informational self-determination of many people."

Benefits are obviously not checked

Ihwas explains that this type of camera system not only records wanted persons, but everyone who passes through it. Nevertheless, the Berlin public prosecutor's office does not see this as "comprehensive surveillance". Considering this claim in particular, however, it must be made transparent "how the technology is used and which person is affected and how", demands the lawyer. Years ago, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on license plate scanning, stating that there is an infringement of the right to informational self-determination even if the result of the official comparison leads to a "non-match".

With the controversial camera system, Ihwas also complained that those affected could not be informed about the processing of their personal data due to the lack of identification. Furthermore, the Saxon police do not keep any statistics on the frequency and successful use of the technology, meaning that its actual benefits are obviously not even checked. In general, secrecy is unacceptable when it comes to such a sensitive issue in terms of the rule of law: "The constitutionality of such measures is doubtful," the lawyer explains. However, the judges in Karlsruhe had not set high hurdles for state measures that affect many uninvolved parties for nothing. In addition, such measures generally create an uneasy feeling of being under surveillance. This is one of the reasons why the DAV has repeatedly warned against initiatives for facial recognition and biometric surveillance.

Pirate Party complains about the Berlin police

Anja Hirschel, lead candidate of the German Pirate Party for the European elections at the beginning of June, has meanwhile lodged an official complaint with the Berlin data protection commissioner Meike Kamp against the use of biometric facial recognition by the police in the capital. She speaks of arbitrary mass surveillance, which represents a direct attack on civil liberties and a blatant violation of people's data protection rights, and must be stopped.

The technology is "error-prone and discriminatory", criticizes Hirschel. It could misidentify innocent citizens and thus lead to unjustified police assaults. Under no circumstances should facial surveillance become a standard investigative tool.

BKA tests with real police data cause controversy

The debate has been exacerbated by a move by the Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) to extract millions of facial images from the central police information system INPOL-Z and hand them over to the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Graphics Research (IGD) for testing. The IGD used the data to upgrade the Wiesbaden authority's facial recognition system. For Martina Renner, member of the Bundestag for the Left Party, this process is "exemplary of how the security authorities deal with data protection requirements". Either the relevant supervisory authority is not involved at all, its responsibility is denied or the need for a legal basis is denied. The politician demanded information from Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) about "whether consent was obtained from those affected in advance and who is responsible for this questionable test".

However, the chairman of the Association of German Criminal Investigators (Bund Deutscher Kriminalbeamter, BdK), Dirk Peglow, emphasized to the broadcaster: "As the police, we are dependent on using modern technologies to counter the threats to our society posed by a wide range of criminal phenomena." To this end, powers must be created as quickly as possible if they do not already exist. Investigators need IT applications to prevent and solve crimes. Data protection must, of course, be taken into account, but "must not become the protection of perpetrators". The BKA believes that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) provides a sufficient legal basis for the probe, while the Federal Data Protection Commissioner Ulrich Kelber takes a different view.

(nie)