Lower Saxony’s data protection officer Denis Lehmkemper wants to closely examine the use of a system for covert video surveillance including biometric facial recognition in Lower Saxony. A spokesman explained this to Heise online. The observation technology involves the controversial Personal Identification System (PerIS), which the Görlitz Police Department (PD) was developed by the Bremen company OptoPrecision and has been using for several years. According to its spokesman, the Lower Saxony data protection authority only learned on Tuesday that the PD Hannover has already used PerIS.
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The technology was used in a gang-related property crime case and provided evidence of vehicles used by gang members. Netzpolitik.org previously reported And That New Germany (ra). A spokesperson for the PD Hannover said Paris “has proven to be helpful for conventional observation measures running in parallel.”
It recently became public that the Saxon police are providing administrative support to several federal states including Paris. The system records the license plates of passing vehicles as well as facial images of drivers and passengers. It has been used in Berlin, among other places, and, according to official information there, it can process facial images “with a delay of a few seconds”. All people recorded in the field are compared with images of suspects from a specific investigation. The hits must be checked by police officers. The Saxon state government has now told parliament that the system will also be used in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg and Baden-Württemberg.
Finding aid from Saxony to Lower Saxony
A spokesperson for the Hanover PD described the case as having been sparked online by saying that investigators were “receiving investigative assistance from the Saxony police.” The systems concerned are not physically located in Lower Saxony and are not operated by police authorities there. Targeted searches of license plates, vehicles and people were carried out based on a judicial order from the Hanover District Court.
Even after several days, the Hanover police were unable to say whether they had carried out the data protection impact assessment for Paris themselves or whether another body had done it. Such a prior analysis is required according to EU law. Saxon data protection officer Julian Hundert already felt left out in the case.
According to reports, photographs taken secretly for the Hanover PD were compared with a police database, which contains photographs of identification measures. Police in Hanover cite Section 98c of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) as the legal basis for the operation. It regulates automated comparisons with existing data in order to solve a crime or determine the whereabouts of a person wanted in criminal proceedings. According to constitutional lawyers However, this standard causes problems Such as the lack of real intervention limits, i.e. clear requirements for intervention by investigators.
Data protection impact assessment is mandatory
Lehmkemper’s spokesman stressed, “According to the fundamental jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court, profound encroachments on fundamental rights always require a special legal permit criterion.” Whether Section 98c meets the requirements for the use of the STPO system must still be examined on this basis Guidelines on the use of facial recognition technology In the field of law enforcement, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) states: “The processing of biometric data is a serious intervention in all circumstances.” This does not depend on the result, such as a positive comparison.
In principle, EU data protection authorities pushed for an explicit ban on biometric facial recognition within the framework of the EU regulation for systems with artificial intelligence (AI), but they were unable to achieve this. In their guidelines they point out that a data protection impact assessment is required before any use of biometric facial recognition. If possible, this should also be published and the responsible data protection supervisory authority should be consulted.
Automatic comparison with database?
According to PD Hannover, Peris generates around 6 terabytes of face and licence plate data every day, which is evaluated using complex software developed in-house. This usually eliminates the need for officers to “painstakingly review individual video clips for relevant data”. All data now required will be automatically and irreversibly deleted after 96 hours. The system is currently not used for real-time comparisons. Subject to the legal situation, the “automatic recognition” of faces and licence plates is also possible in live mode. Whether this will be activated in the future is “a nationwide issue” that cannot be decided alone.
Saxon Interior Ministry Assurances given in October: “Automatic comparisons with domestic or European databases have never been carried out.” The PERIS software concept “does not allow this due to the lack of a technical interface”. Then comparisons are made manually with the Schengen Information System (SIS), the police information system Inpol, the Saxony Police Information System (Passport), the European vehicle and driving licence information system Eukeris and the central traffic information system Zevis. The Saxon police currently operate ten stationary camera towers and two mobile PERIS devices, which are hidden in a white or orange van. The first edition of Paris-Mobil came into operation in February 2021,
(AVR)
