20260206 Smarte Polizei?

EU GDPR violated with EU funds?

Police forces in all EU countries are set to become "smarter". Instead of requesting identification data by telephone from their local police station, as has been the case up to now, police officers will in future use modern mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets that work with a special app and databases to identify people, vehicles, and objects in real time. Biometric data will be used for identification purposes.

Although millions have already been spent on purchasing the equipment, including 4 million from EU funding (75%), the Greek Data Protection Authority determined on January 14, 2026:

"The authority found that there was no legal basis for the intended data processing by the system and that the necessary impact assessment for personal data had not been carried out in a timely manner during the pilot phase of the system. For these reasons, the authority issued a warning to the Greek police."

Several million could have been saved if the system had been tested beforehand. The NGO Homo Digitalis initiated the test. It is embarrassing that the system was already put into operation last year and that the project received first prize in the category "Best Implemented Idea" in the area of "Citizen Security" from the Greek Ministry of Digital Governance, as Telepolis.de reports.

For us in Germany, however, the situation is no better, because the Ministry of the Interior and various state police authorities want to use — or are already using — Palantir, developed by the right-wing extremist US billionaire Peter Thiel, instead of a (Greek) European solution. The Greek police will not be throwing away their hardware and software either, but will now "only" use it to prosecute traffic violations ...