NRW police data analysis law permits insufficient AI safeguards
NRW's revised police law permits the Palantir system to operate with AI and allows police to train models on their own data, including personal data when anonymization would be burdensome. The state data protection commissioner warned that insufficient safeguards govern these practices and that unreliable police databases could cause serious harms when used to train AI systems predicting crime.
What happened
Under a revised NRW police law passed in 2025, the Palantir data analysis system can now operate using AI, despite previous decisions against this on safety grounds. The law permits police to train AI using their own data, including personal data when anonymization would require disproportionate effort.
Reported impact
Police databases contain unreliable and rarely updated data. A complainant was denied US entry because border control cited a police suspicion that was later disproven by acquittal. When police retain undisproven suspicions, using such data to train AI systems could have severe consequences.
Index analysis
The NRW data protection commissioner warned that insufficient safeguards govern the use and training of AI in both the revised Police Law and the new Constitutional Protection Law. The laws do not adequately address the different impacts of diverse AI applications or the problems arising from defective data bases.
Governance controls
Laws were passed in expedited procedures without sufficient care to protect fundamental rights. The laws permit using unreliable police data for AI training and allow personal data use when anonymization would impose disproportionate effort.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.