Criminal investigation departments used a facial recognition system of the BKA more than twice as often as in the previous year. The system is generating an increasing number of so-called hits while simultaneously creating a bias against asylum seekers.

German authorities also used the police facial recognition system GES significantly more often again last year. By far the most frequent users are the criminal investigation departments at federal and state level, with 313,500 searches – in 2024 there were still 121,000. The Federal Police used the system around 30,000 times, which also represents an increase of about half compared to the previous year.

The GES, established in 2008, is physically located at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). Officially described as a “support tool”, it is intended to help verify the identities of suspects or victims. The Department of Criminal Science and Technology as well as the Central Information and Search Service operate the GES. For this purpose, the INPOL database is searched; it currently stores 5.4 million people with 7.6 million photographs.

The technology enables the retrospective comparison of images from surveillance cameras or smartphones. To do this, the anatomical features of a face visible in the image are encoded and stored as a so-called template. A search takes less than a second, according to the Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office. The system then creates a “candidate list”, in which individuals are ranked in descending order according to similarity value. These results are subsequently verified by at least two photographic experts.

Significantly more identified persons

The current figures come from a response to a parliamentary inquiry to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. However, they may also include double counting, for example due to repeated GES comparisons of the same search image or multiple comparisons of a video sequence.

The number of identified persons has also increased significantly. The Federal Police leads here with 5,328 “hits” – according to this, one in six searches was successful. One explanation could be that the Federal Police primarily uses the GES for migration control during operations at internal borders. More than half of the 5.4 million individuals stored in INPOL are asylum seekers or people whose asylum applications have been rejected. All others ended up in the database because they were processed for identification purposes on suspicion of a criminal offence.

Criminal investigation departments recorded only a slight increase in “hits”: in 2025, 1,833 individuals were identified using the GES (2024: 1,385; 2023: 1,683). This was the result of an inquiry by “nd” to the Federal Ministry of the Interior. The hits are also referred to as “indications of identity”.

For the first time, the response also reports the number of “investigative leads”. These occur when no direct hit is found but a similarity or anomaly is detected. In 2025, “investigative leads” to criminal investigation departments doubled to around 22,000, while for the Federal Police they increased in the same year from around 4,500 to 6,000.

Facial queries now also via mobile phone

The Ministry of the Interior and the BKA do not provide reasons for the significant increase in queries and hits. However, it is likely that the introduction of a new BKA facial recognition system using so-called artificial intelligence in September 2024 is decisive. The error rate is said to have fallen to below one percent, BKA chief Holger Münch praised the system at the 2024 autumn conference. Due to automation, around 50 staff will be reassigned from facial recognition to other departments by the end of 2026, as manual comparisons by BKA photographic experts are becoming increasingly unnecessary aside from the final checks required by the AI regulation.

However, photographic experts continue to exist at the State Criminal Police Offices and the Federal Police. Only they are authorised to work independently with the GES – after completing an “introductory course on photographic comparisons” at the BKA, which lasts ten weeks. This BKA module is preceded by at least quarterly practical instruction at the State Criminal Police Office, as explained, for example, by the Bavarian state government.

The BKA now also enables queries of its facial recognition system using a mobile application on police officers’ phones. This “GES app” was developed by the Hesse police – in close technical coordination with the BKA, as the Federal Ministry of the Interior explained in response to another parliamentary inquiry by the Left Party parliamentary group.

More racist controls lead to more “hits”

Photo comparisons in the BKA GES carry the risk that criminal offences are increasingly attributed to certain groups of people. This is highlighted in a special issue of the journal “Studies in Criminal Law” from last year. This is because “hits” or “investigative leads” can only occur for individuals who are in the INPOL database. All asylum applicants are stored there regardless of suspicion. “If they commit offences and an image of them is available, the probability of detection therefore increases significantly,” states one chapter of the journal.

A similar problem exists for individuals perceived as foreign or socioeconomically disadvantaged, who are already subject to more frequent police checks. These checks also make it more likely that the individual will be processed for identification purposes as a criminal suspect – and thus end up in INPOL, where the data record is then searched in the hundreds of thousands of queries each year.

“Increased controls targeting certain groups of people not only lead to them being punished more frequently because offences are detected during these checks. They are also punished more frequently because in the future criminal behaviour can again be attributed to them via facial recognition,” states “Studies in Criminal Law”.

Image: Joanjo Pavon, Unsplash.