The regulations on the use of a new type of data analysis software by the police in Hesse and Hamburg are unconstitutional in their current form. This is announced by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. The verdict relates exclusively to the use of technology to prevent criminal offenses. It is the first judgment from Karlsruhe on the use of artificial intelligence in police work.
With analysis software for huge amounts of data, the police want to track down potential criminals more quickly. The program combs through databases to discover cross-connections that investigators might otherwise never notice. Court President Stephan Harbarth emphasized when the verdict was announced that the court did not fundamentally reject the practice, but that a constitutional design was possible.
The First Senate justified its judgment with the fact that there is no intervention threshold in the regulations. Hesse must now change its law accordingly by September 30, 2023. Until then, it is applicable subject to conditions. In Hamburg, where automated data evaluation has not yet been put into practice, the regulation is void.
The judgment only applies to Hamburg and Hesse, where the software is used, but it also has an impact nationwide: Bavaria, for example, is working on introducing the system, and other federal states could follow.
Hessendata aims to uncover potential criminals before they become criminals
The Hessen police use the “Hessendata” platform, which is operated with software from the US company Palantir. Information from a police database is used there, but Hessendata also has access to the Comvor case processing system. Every police operation is recorded in the system, from neighborhood disputes to traffic accidents to serious crimes. The system should establish cross-connections and be able to recognize references. In this way, potential offenders should also be discovered before they even commit an offence.
Lawyers, journalists and political activists had lodged a constitutional complaint. There are fears that people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time could be targeted by the judiciary without them being at fault. Victims and witnesses from previous police cases are also documented in the databases of the Hessen police.
The Hessian Ministry of the Interior had always assured that the databases were not connected to the Internet and that information from social networks was not automatically fed in either. Hessendata is used in particular to combat terrorism, organized crime and child pornography. With around 14,000 queries a year, more than 2,000 police officers across the country work with the system.