German police union calls for introducing facial recognition as Bundesliga kicks off

As the German Bundesliga football competition kicked off last Friday, the German police trade union called for increased use of modern security technology, including live facial recognition software and body scans.

The Trade Union of the Police (Gewerkschaft der Polizei – GdP) is facing a massive increase in working hours during the upcoming matches, according to GdP Federal Chairman Jochen Kopelke. The union leader called on those responsible to immediately increase investments in security personnel and infrastructure in order to better support the police.

“The associations and clubs should clearly identify those who endanger the safety of the stadium experience and remove these individuals from the stands,” says Kopelke. “Football does not need hate chants, pyrotechnics, or violence.”

Germany has been struggling with football fan violence. Last year, clashes between supporters of FC Carl Zeiss Jena and BSG Chemie Leipzig left 79 people injured, including 10 police officers.

Not everyone, however, is supportive of introducing new surveillance tools to football stadiums.

“If the conditions that the GdP repeatedly cites and uses to justify such measures actually existed, no one would bring their family to a game,” says Linda Röttig, a lawyer at Fanhilfe, an organization that helps football fans in trouble with the law.

Football fans have fundamental rights, which prohibit the “total surveillance fantasies such as George Orwell’s 1984,” the fan representative told RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland (RND)

Facial recognition systems are becoming a common fixture across European stadiums. Among the latest to announce the introduction of the technology is FC Copenhagen, which received a green light from the Danish Data Protection Agency in May.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  facial recognition  |  Germany  |  real-time biometrics  |  video surveillance