Brandenburg data protection authority criticizes police facial recognition system
Brandenburg's data protection authority criticized police use of a facial recognition system in two prosecution cases, stating it processed faces of hundreds or thousands of uninvolved persons from public spaces and was disproportionate under data protection law.
What happened
Brandenburg's data protection authority criticized the use of a facial recognition system by police in two prosecution proceedings conducted by the State Prosecutor's Office Frankfurt (Oder) based on judicial decisions.
The system processes faces from public spaces and compares them in real-time with images in police databases. The authority stated the procedure involved faces of hundreds or thousands of uninvolved persons.
Reported impact
The data protection authority criticized the data processing as disproportionate, stating that processing the faces of such large numbers of uninvolved individuals raised privacy concerns.
Index analysis
Multiple data protection authorities expressed concerns about the system known as PerlS (Personen-Identifikation-System). Photos of drivers passing camera locations are compared in real-time with photos of suspects.
Governance controls
A previous automated license plate reading system in Brandenburg called Kesy was stopped years earlier after being deemed unlawful, raising questions about oversight of similar surveillance technologies.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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