Germany Rushes to Expand Biometric Surveillance

The German government is pushing a "security package" through Parliament at record speed that would sharply expand biometric surveillance, which the article argues undermines European law, the German constitution and the government's own coalition agreement. The package was introduced after a knife attack in Solingen in late August and includes allowing law enforcement to compare biometric data of suspects against all publicly available internet data. It would also let the Federal Office for Migration and Asylum identify asylum seekers without IDs this way, and it would expand AI-enabled data mining of police records. The article notes that Germany's highest court ruled Palantir-enabled data mining by two states unconstitutional.