Schlagwort: Federal Criminal Police Office

The long arm of repression

The Hamburg police use the EU arrest warrant and the European Investigation Order to prosecute activists after the G20 summit. The Federal Criminal Police Office assumes the function of a central office.

After the G20 summit, the Hamburg special commission „Black Block“ travelled several times to neighbouring countries for an „exchange of knowledge“. This was announced by the Hamburg Senate at the request of Christiane Schneider, a member of parliament. The Senate did not write which measures and visited authorities were involved. Two weeks ago, the Hamburg police announced the dissolution of the special commission. All criminal investigations into the G20 summit are now being continued by an investigation team based at the Political Department of the Criminal Police Office (LKA) in Hamburg. The long arm of repression weiterlesen

German Criminal Police maintains arrest warrants despite Interpol warning about political persecution

After the detention of critical authors and journalists, Interpol came under criticism. All arrest warrants should be reviewed retroactively for possible political persecution. German authorities promised to check incoming warrants more strictly. Little has happened since then.

In police investigations, the border to political or religious persecution is sometimes blurred. This becomes particularly critical when international warrants come from non-democratic countries. In order not to transform the Interpol authority into an instrument of political persecution, it is therefore strictly forbidden „to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character“. However, this does not prevent some countries from issuing searches or, as in the case of Germany, from playing the game in some cases. German Criminal Police maintains arrest warrants despite Interpol warning about political persecution weiterlesen

More face recognition at the German Federal Criminal Police

The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) is expanding its capabilities for biometric face recognition. For this purpose, the performance of the central face recognition system (GES), with which the BKA has been able to search its databases since 2008, is to be reviewed. The Office will then decide whether a new facial recognition system should be procured or whether the existing 2D system should be „upgraded“. The GES searches the electronic police information system at the BKA (known as INPOL), which currently contains over 4 million searchable photographs. The Federal Ministry of the Interior reported 26,879 searches for 2017 (2016: 23,064, 2015: 16,773). Until 2015, the BKA had participated in the „GES-3D“ project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. For the identification of people from photo and video data, ear recognition is also integrated. The aim of this study should be to switch to such a 3D system. More face recognition at the German Federal Criminal Police weiterlesen