Cloudy Waters: The Dilemma of Police Facial Recognition in Brandenburg
Disputes Surrounding the Efficiency and Ethics of Police Facial Recognition Technology - Police Facial Recognition Technology under Scrutiny
Welcome to the murky world of facial recognition debates, specifically in Brandenburg. The local data protection authority has taken aim at the cops and their facial recognition program, stating it as a grey area.
The latest tension originates from investigations by the Frankfurt (Oder) public prosecutor's office. Apparently, a court order allowed the use of facial recognition, but the authority perceives this data processing as unbalanced. They argue that the method swipes through the faces of hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent individuals in public areas, comparing their features with the police database.
Anticipating the polarizing implementation of the facial recognition system employed in Saxony, the Brandenburg Interior Ministry declared its adoption back in 2024. The system aids in tracking down criminal gangs by cross-referencing photos of drivers with images of suspects in real-time.
Concerns over the Person Identification System (PerlS) have been echoed by other data protection authorities as well. In Brandenburg, the use of automatic license plate recognition - the so-called Kesy system - ceased due to illegality years prior.
An uptick in data protection complaints was observed in Brandenburg last year, making it the highest record since 2018, with the introduction of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Among the reported violations, hacks attacks resulted in 506 data protection breaches, and five temporary penalties were given due to GDPR infringements.
The data protection officer recently presented the annual report, expressing concerns that the expanded use of artificial intelligence (AI) will lead to additional instances of data mismanagement. As of the start of 2022, complaints from citizens have escalated concerning AI application in companies. If data used for AI training is not properly anonymized or affected parties are uninformed about data processing, it could pose challenges from the privacy viewpoint.
The eye-catching spotlight of the data protection authorities landed on a violating eyewear company, which was forced to pay a fine of 30,000 euros. Despite an opt-out, the company kept blasting 63 promotional emails over a nine-month period to a single customer.
The police have faced data protection scrutiny before, with specific instances of misconduct, such as an officer mishandling thousands of police data sets on a personal hard drive including sensitive information. Although the culprit had to cough up a salary equivalent fine, it serves as a grim reminder of the sensitive nature of digital data.
The authorities raise eyebrows on the implementation of payment cards for asylum seekers, a strategy aimed to prevent overseas transfers. However, to authorize certain transactions for asylum seekers such as legal fees, mobile phone subscriptions, or Germany ticket payments, lists of recipients (whitelists) are compiled. The data protection officers label this approach as questionable and aim to assess its practice in certain districts this year.
Lastly, the data protection officers had their work cut out for them, as they navigated through video surveillance in hotels, investigating over 786 cameras in the past year. On numerous occasions, the monitoring of lobbies, corridors, elevators, and outdoor areas was squashed, resulting in a complex ordeal for the data protection officers.
As the curtain lifts on this ongoing saga, the question remains whether facial recognition technology will become another recurring theme, becoming tangled within the pending web of data protection concerns. Stay tuned for the next episode!
- Facial recognition
- Brandenburg
- Privacy
- Police
- Data protection officers
- Potsdam
- Artificial intelligence
- Facial recognition scandal: Investigators use technology illegally, politicians call for reform
- EU AI Act: Regulation for artificial intelligence in Europe
- The data protection authorities in Brandenburg are continually monitoring the use of facial recognition technology by the police, as the technology's wide-scale application in public areas raises concerns about privacy.
- In Potsdam, the implementation of facial recognition technology by authorities has been under scrutiny, with the possibility of it becoming another recurring issue in the ongoing debate about data protection.
- As the Brandenburg Interior Ministry prepares for the adoption of facial recognition technology in 2024, the issue of data protection and privacy becomes increasingly important, especially when implementing technologies like AI in vocational training programs and data-and-cloud-computing systems.
