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Security package 2.0: Experts consider draft laws to be unconstitutional
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The federal government wants to allow police authorities and the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees new search options. Experts believe the powers are far too far-reaching and warned today in the Bundestag of a legal shaky game.
Search the Internet using facial recognition or use software to link and analyze as large amounts of data as possible. The federal government is calling for these new powers in several draft laws for the Federal Criminal Police Office and the Federal Police. The Federal Office for Migration should also be allowed to identify asylum seekers using facial recognition. The reform plans – also known as “Security Package 2.0” – are the topic todayhttps://www.bundestag.de/ausschuesse/inneres/anhoerungs/1210144-1210144...Interior Committee of the Bundestagbeen.
The way there was long. As early as 2024, the traffic light government at the time presented an initial “security package” after several terrorist attacks. It failedhttps://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/bundestag-verabschiedet-sicherheithei...Federal Council. Before a new attempt could be made, the coalition of SPD, FDP and Greens collapsed.
That was the end of the traffic lights, but not of the ambitions. At the end of April, black and red laid downhttps://netzpolitik.org/2026/faq-das-ueberwachungspaket-der-bundesregier...reform plans, which look alarmingly similar to the old ones. The package now includes three drafts for changes to the Federal Police Act (BPolG) and the Federal Criminal Police Office Act (BKAG) as well as the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Technical feasibility vs. fundamental rights
Civil rights organizations and associations already had a number of critical comments in the springhttps://cdn.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/2026/04/2026-04-GFF-Stellungnahme-...devastating statementssubmitted to the plans. Today the experts in the Interior Committee spoke about this.
It was mainly about two points: firstly, the new powers to search for faces on the Internet and secondly, the plans to automatically evaluate large amounts of data. Both are based on technologies that are referred to as “artificial intelligence”. They make it possible to record enormous amounts of data within a very short time and examine them for patterns.
But state authorities should not be allowed to do everything that is technically possible - for example because it affects fundamental rights that go to the core of democracy. This is pointed out by several of the eight experts, including the Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider. With the exception of the representatives of the police authorities themselves, almost all experts see a need for improvement. Some of them are even calling for the planned changes to the law to be deleted without replacement.
BKA praises “technically open formulations”
Martina Link, an expert at the BKA, considers the powers to be “up-to-date”. The vice president of the office expressly welcomes the “technically open formulation”. The advantage of being able to use third-party providers such as PimEyes for the search is that the security authorities do not have to collect and store publicly available images themselves. The European AI regulation prohibits this.
What Link doesn't mention: These third-party providers also violate the AI regulation with their data collection. The BKA would not have to break the requirements itself, but would then use providers who do so.
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The deputy federal chairman of the police union (GdP), Alexander Poitz, also praises the draft. This makes a clear distinction between publicly accessible data and “protected private communication and retreat spaces”. He also ensures that authorities are only allowed to access sensitive data on an ad hoc basis and under certain conditions, says Poitz.
“Technical requirement for comprehensive tracking”
Pia Sombetzki from the NGO AlgorithmWatch, however, considers the measures to be incompatible with the requirements of the Basic Law and European law. “With the laws, the federal government is creating nothing other than the technical prerequisites for the comprehensive persecution of all people in public spaces,” says Sombetzki.
According to the AI regulation, the aimless and mass collection of facial images from the Internet is prohibited if the aim is to use them to build a database. But that is precisely the technical requirement for using face search. Both a report commissioned by AlgorithmWatch and the Scientific Services of the German Bundestag come to the conclusion that a photo search is not possible without such a database.
Sombetzki warns that the plans “overlook practice” and that the deletion obligations provided for in the draft are ineffective. “People must assume that their faces and voices are recorded in the database.” This leads to a so-calledhttps://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect">Chillingeffect: People could withdraw from public life because they fear that they would otherwise be targeted by the police.
Markus Töpfermann, professor at the Federal University of Public Administration, sees data that is particularly worthy of protection when searching for faces on the Internet. Contrary to what the Federal Government claims, the Constitutional Court's previous case law on video surveillance or automated license plate analysis cannot be transferred. According to Töpfermann, the intervention thresholds and procedural safeguards provided for in the draft are inadequate.
Töpfermann is particularly critical of the regulations governing automated data analysis. “Basic work is still required here,” warned the lawyer at the hearing. He appeals to MPs not to lose sight of this. “This instrument is likely to be the most powerful that the legislature has had to decide on in the last 25 years.”
https://netzpolitik.org/2026/digitale-ueberwachungsbefugnisse-schwarz-ro...Security package “largely unconstitutional”
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Narrow the circle, exclude commercial providers
The Federal Data Protection Commissioner (BfDI) Louisa Specht-Riemenschneider also rejects the current drafts in their current form and calls for a fundamental revision. In particular, biometric data comparison and automated data analysis go far too far for her. The intervention thresholds are set too low and the circle of those affected is too broad, says Specht-Riemenschneider. There would also be a lack of mechanisms that protect the core area of private life or prevent real-time surveillance.
Specht-Riemenschneider also thinks little of the plans to use commercial search engines such as those from PimEyes or Clearview. The Federal Data Protection Commissioner finds it understandable that it is unacceptable for the authorities if private individuals use it to locate wanted people, while the police are not allowed to use the search. However, the databases are “highly questionable in terms of data protection law” and are presumably not compatible with either the AI regulation or European data protection requirements. According to Specht-Riemenschneider, the powers should at least be limited to people who have been advertised for public searches.
The lawyer Kai Kempgens from the German Lawyers' Association also warns against the plans. Officials are already allowed to do research online today. However, there is a natural limit here, he emphasizes. A single official cannot search the entire Internet. Automated analyzes are now removing these limits. Here you have to be aware that you are dealing with a completely different breadth and depth of analysis.
Biometric facial recognition and data analysis would enable profound interventions in fundamental rights without providing for sufficient intervention thresholds or transparency. Kempgens calls for the measures to be strictly limited to particularly serious crimes and for the scope of analysis to be limited to certain data sources: "You should only be allowed to search where you think you will find something. And not completely limitless, as is intended, in all data sources."
What the authorities are already allowed to do today
The Federal Criminal Police Office has been running a biometric face search for years. Thehttps://www.bka.de/DE/ UnserAufgabe/Ermittlungsunterstuetzung/Erkennung...(GES) allows comparison with all people who have already been “identified”. This can happen after an arrest, but also “preventively”, for example when people apply for asylum in Germany.
The photographs of more than five million people are stored in the BKA database. The planned online photo search would be a huge upgrade for this system because, theoretically, almost everyone can be recorded -https://netzpolitik.org/2024/neues-bka-system-polizeiliche-faciserken...namely everyone whose photos can be found on the internet.
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Become part of this unique community and support our public interest-oriented, advertising- and tracking-free journalismhttps://netzpolitik.org/spenden/?via=rss">nowwith a donation.
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