Berlin police start AI-powered street surveillance

Police in Berlin on Thursday launched a controversial project using AI-powered surveillance cameras in high-crime areas of the German capital.

For an initial four weeks, the cameras will be installed and fine-tuned in the Kotbusser Tor area before they are actively used. Police then plan to roll out the scheme to other inner-city districts designated "high crime areas".

Rather than facial recognition, the technology will use "spatial AI", which analyses movements to flag potential crimes and acts of violence.

Police say the cameras will be connected to inactive screens which will only light up and show information when flagged by the AI.

"The system can for example recognise whether someone has fallen over or a football has been kicked," meaning fewer false alarms, police said in a statement.

"Violent situations and damage can be identified automatically and can be forwarded on to a police officer, who will take a decision" on whether to take action.

Despite police assurances that Germany's strict data protection rules will be adhered to, the plans have prompted pushback from groups worried about excessive state surveillance.

Germans are especially protective of their personal privacy and wary of state surveillance, a legacy of the secret police forces that operated under past totalitarian regimes -- the Nazis' Gestapo and communist East Germany's Stasi.

Critics of the new police system include the far-left Die Linke party, which won last Sunday's election in the city-state and hopes to soon start talks with other parties towards building a governing coalition.

At the of August, Die Linke and the Greens jointly launched a legal challenge to the law which enables the AI surveillance project and gives the police other new powers.

"A huge super-database could emerge that would blow apart all the boundaries of the rule of law," the parties said in a joint statement at the time.

"It is totally unclear what data could be processed in the future and for what purposes," they argued.