Berlin and Baden-Württemberg | Police “regularly” compare facial images after the Gaza protest

The police at a pro-Palestine demonstration in November 2023 in Kreuzberg. Investigations using facial recognition were later carried out in connection with damage to property at an Allianz branch. Photo: IMAGO/Andreas Friedrichs In Berlin, videos of demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine are being searched biometrically. The Berlin police confirmed this at the request of “nd”. As part of investigations, suitable image material from video recordings of operations and from “material published online” is “regularly” compared with the facial recognition system (GES) of the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), which has been in place since 2008. The requested photographs are in the INPOL file, which is the largest German police database and is also kept by the BKA. The system is used to identify unknown suspects.

The Berlin searches in the GES were “fact-related,” explains a police spokeswoman “nd.” Queries are only made to identify previously unknown suspects - and only in INPOL. The police answered the question as to whether data from uninvolved participants in legal gatherings were also searched and then stored by name with “no”. The Berlin State Police Criminal Police Office therefore does not maintain its own reference databases for image searches.

The Berlin police also explain the routine of a GES query. To do this, the officers create still images of alleged suspects from existing video material using “conventional media players”. These are compared “automatically” with the identification photos and mugshots stored in the INPOL network. There are currently around 7.4 million searchable photos of around 5.2 million people stored in the GES, said a spokeswoman for »nd«. Fingerprint data is also available for around 5.1 million people affected.

A current case from Baden-Württemberg shows that uninvolved people are also recorded in such comparisons and that the police rummage through their own data collections. In the sabotage trial against the "Ulm 5" in Stuttgart-Stammheim, it became known that an investigator from the State Criminal Police Office had computer-assisted evaluations of recordings from a registered protest camp at the site of the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems - even against people who had not committed a crime.

The official spoke of a “technical image comparison,” in which a program provides a preselection of possible hits. The investigative measure took place at an unknown time after the end of the meeting in Ulm. However, it is unclear which reference file was searched for.

The LKA man testified before the State Security Chamber in Stammheim that he first compared two of the defendants with the image material. He then checked who the program still recognized. The officer was able to identify four other participants in a registered demonstration in Ulm who had nothing to do with the proceedings against the “Ulm 5”. Photos, names, dates of birth and addresses of these people are now in the investigation files in Baden-Württemberg.

The witness left it unclear who ordered the comparison and on what legal basis it was carried out, citing his limited permission to testify. The Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), which supports those affected in proceedings against encroachments on fundamental rights, considers such a measure against meeting participants without any specific connection to the crime to be fundamentally illegal.

The storage of these uninvolved people is of no use for the investigation anyway: The “Ulm 5” had planned from the outset to be arrested by the police after destroying furniture and equipment in an office building at the Elbit factory in Ulm. They filmed their crime for a confession video and posted it online, then they waited for the police and allowed themselves to be arrested without resistance.

The Berlin police cite Section 98c of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO) in conjunction with Section 163b StPO as the legal basis for subsequent facial recognition in connection with pro-Palestinian gatherings. The first provision allows data from criminal proceedings to be automatically compared with other data in order to identify a suspect. The second regulates measures to establish identity.

The Berlin lawyer Benjamin Düsberg is now opposing exactly this practice. In proceedings before the Tiergarten District Court, he objects to the requested judicial confirmation of the confiscation of his client's data carriers. The initial suspicion against her was based on the GES comparison of the recording from a surveillance camera in which an unknown person could be seen. The BKA system then output Düsberg's client's data.

Düsberg argues that Paragraph 98c allows general data comparison, but not expressly a biometric facial search. However, the results cannot be used without a legal basis. Since the search warrant is based on this illegally carried out comparison, the confiscation of the devices cannot be legally justified.

Attorney Düsberg is now demanding access to the complete documentation of the GES research, including software, methodology and probability calculations for the similarity search. It may be variable: It is known from Frankfurt, where the only German system for real-time facial recognition is currently running, that the police can adjust a “minimum similarity threshold”. The lower the value is set, the more people are reported as “hits” - except for the “correct” one, all of them are incorrect assignments. These uninvolved people are then sorted out as non-suspects using “follow-up measures” by the police.

However, Düsberg also considers the evaluation of his client's smartphones and other devices to be disproportionate because it only concerns the accusation of property damage through graffiti: On January 27, 2025, unknown people are said to have sprayed the window front of an Allianz Versicherung branch on Berlin's Friedrichstrasse with red paint at around one o'clock in the morning. A red triangle and the words “Drop Elbit” (directed against the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems) and “Stop Genocide” are said to have been attached.

The proceedings regarding the damage to property are being conducted by the Berlin State Security Service. The slogan sprayed is directed against Elbit Systems. The background to the Berlin action is probably criticism of the fact that Allianz Insurance is investing in 15 weapons manufacturers that supply Israel, including Elbit.

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