The police in Saxony have a previously unknown facial recognition technology for surveillance from vehicles. The first use of this technology has now become known in Berlin.

For law enforcement purposes, the police in Saxony use facial recognition software for long-term surveillance, which compares recorded persons with a database. The intelligent video technology is either permanently installed at hidden places or even built into vehicles that are parked inconspicuously at the side of the road.

The use of such technology in the area of “cross-border gang crime” became known in March following a parliamentary question submitted in Berlin. The answer refers to “two sets of proceedings”. The surveillance system used came from Saxony, the Public Prosecutor’s Office now confirmed to “nd”. This administrative assistance was necessary “because the appropriate technology is not available in Berlin”. Saxony also covered the costs for the deployment in the capital.

The software processes facial images “with a time delay of a few seconds”, according to the Public Prosecutor’s Office. Technically speaking, this is a real-time comparison to identify a suspect at a specific location. For this purpose, all persons recorded in the vicinity are compared with images of suspects from a specific investigation. If the software detects a suspicious person, the finding is checked by a police officer.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office cites Section 98a of the Code of Criminal Procedure on dragnet searches as the legal basis for the use of biometric surveillance. It permits the measure in the case of a criminal offence of major significance if other methods would be “considerably less promising or significantly more difficult”.

According to the law on dragnet searches, all persons captured by the technology may be “mechanically compared with other data”. In the case of surveillance with video cameras, all persons in the vicinity are therefore included in the police grid. According to the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office: “This means that targeted surveillance of certain people is only carried out with the help of technical means, but not blanket surveillance of an indefinite number of people.”

Tobias Singelnstein, Professor of Criminal Law at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, disagrees with this assessment: “Such a measure interferes to a considerable extent with the rights of completely uninvolved persons because, depending on the circumstances, a large number of people are included,” says Singelnstein to “nd”. The legal basis in the Code of Criminal Procedure does not even provide for such a measure.

The Berlin police and judiciary do not want to answer details about how the software works and refer to their colleagues in Saxony. There, however, the “observation technology for covert measures” is subject to confidentiality, a police spokesperson told “nd”. This is regulated by a police service regulation, he said.

According to the Saxon police, they do not have any figures on how often the video dragnet has been used in other investigations. It is also not possible to find out whether the observations carried out in known antifa investigations were carried out with it.

A well-known manufacturer of such biometric technology is the Dresden-based company Cognitech. Its portfolio includes the “FaceVACS-VideoScan” software, which can compare faces from live video streams with image databases. It should be possible to count recorded persons, track them in the room and categorise them into gender and age groups. If a wanted person is detected, a real-time notification is sent to police officers.

In Upper Lusatia, the Saxon police operates a “Person Identification System” (PerIS), which can also compare faces and licence plates – but allegedly not in real time. According to the spokesperson, the operation that has now become known in Berlin does not involve any parts the PerIS system. However, according to the Berlin interior authority, the system used for administrative assistance from Saxony can also “create images of vehicles and compare them biometrically”.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: Applications such as “FaceVACS-VideoScan” from Cognitech in Dresden can search for faces in real-time video data (Cognitech).