Multiple German states are moving to dramatically expand police surveillance powers by allowing personal data—including names and facial images—to be fed directly into commercial AI systems. North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg are advancing new laws that permit police to bypass anonymization whenever it is deemed “impossible” or too burdensome, effectively giving authorities full discretion to upload unaltered citizen data into platforms such as Palantir. Hamburg passed similar rules earlier this year, following Bavaria’s controversial 2024 decision to test Palantir’s software using real personal information. Data protection officials are sounding the alarm, warning that these measures violate core constitutional protections and turn state-collected data from victims, witnesses, and uninvolved bystanders into training material for private surveillance companies. Despite these concerns, governments are embedding the new powers into revised police acts—sidestepping earlier court rulings that sought to limit long-term monitoring rather than expand it.

Germany, long held as the global standard for privacy, is now watching its foundational protections rewritten through technological loopholes. Police will soon be able to “develop, review, change, or train” AI surveillance tools using identifiable data from citizens who have committed no crime, with the justification resting on vague terms like “disproportionate effort.” This shift mirrors a global trend in which governments normalize AI-driven monitoring under the banner of efficiency and public safety. Yet each expansion erodes the boundary between security and control, inching society closer to a system where every movement, face, and behavior is logged, analyzed, and stored. Revelation describes a future in which systems of power monitor and manage life itself—and the building blocks of that world are appearing not through dramatic upheaval, but through quiet legislative lines buried in regional police acts.

SOURCE: Reclaim the Net