After many episodes in tv-shows and IRL (in real life) in which computers said no, again a Court says No.
This time the legal dispute was new legislation for the police in Hesse and in Hamburg. In Hesse they were already using technology, provided by Palentir. https://www.euractiv.com/section/artificial-intelligence/news/german-constitutional-court-strikes-down-predictive-algorithms-for-policing/?_ga=2.267448268.37876334.1677140211-455400974.1677140211
Both Lands enabled in specific legislation for linking previously unconnected automated databases and data sources in analysis platforms and permitting systementic access of data accros sources through searches.
The Federal Constitutional court ruled that since the legislator didn’t limit the methods (such as the use of self-learning systems) and permitted open searches, there were no sufficient legal bounderies. The potentially broad new insights are not accompanied by rules regarding their use that could lower the severity of interference.
Many interesting issues in this verdict are addressed, to me the most interesting thing is that (in my own words) if the police would like to use the data to prevent criminal acts, it can’t justify the data processing is necessary because of a specific danger or an identifiable danger.
The original verdict in German: https://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/e/rs20230216_1bvr154719.html
Data-mining in Germany
As a side note only, did you know that data-mining was openly used in Germany in the previous century? The technique, known as rasterfahndung was used to search for terrorists of RAF. https://www.planet-wissen.de/geschichte/deutsche_geschichte/raf/pwiefahndungsmethoden100.html
Automated administrative decisions and the law 