Federal Interior Minister Nancy Fesser (SPD) wants to enable the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the federal police to make “biometric comparisons with publicly accessible data from the Internet” when looking for suspected terrorists and serious criminals. The SPD-affiliated digital policy association D64 is warning about this project: “The Federal Ministry of the Interior plans to use biometric facial recognition on the entire public Internet,” complains D64 co-chairman Erik Tuchtfeld. “In fact, this leads to complete surveillance of public spaces.”
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Trump interview: EU commissioner calls on Musk to comply with DSATuchtfeld fears that in the future every holiday photo published on social media will be evaluated for accidental hits in the background. Citizens’ cell phones “can always be used as state surveillance cameras.” This level of surveillance is incompatible with a liberal society.
The draft bill of the Department of the Interior, which has not yet been agreed upon within the federal government, is surprising because it clearly contradicts the coalition agreement of the Traffic Light Coalition: it states: “We reject the use of biometric recordings for mass video surveillance and surveillance purposes.” The new EU regulation for artificial intelligence (AI) opens the doors wide for the use of automated facial recognition by the police. However, the traffic lights agreed in February that they did not want to follow this course.
Warnings about Big Brother
The deputy of the Green parliamentary group, Konstantin von Notz, stressed in the editorial Network Germany at the weekend that the Faser plan raises “deep constitutional questions”. At the same time, he recalled the coalition agreement. FDP digital expert Maximilian Funke-Kaiser criticized the single approach of the interior minister, which is not clear how it should be compatible with the traffic light contract.
Just a few days ago, Green Party members of the Bundestag Marcel Emmerich and Tobias Bächerle reiterated the call for an immediate halt to biometric mass surveillance: “AI facial recognition systems pose risks and do not offer much security,” He warned in the Frankfurter Rundschau. “The pursuit of absolute security quickly turns into Orwellian situations when systems become automated in the background in public places, train stations, demonstrations and folk festivals.”
Dirk Peglo, president of the Association of German Criminal Investigators (BDK), fully supports Faser’s proposal. It cannot be done, he said, citing the recent RAF manhunt: “Police officers have to abandon the Internet when investigating unknown suspects, while investigative research networks can use it.” In 2020, other police unions called for a ban, especially on the facial search engine PimEyes.
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