After six years, the legal dispute over the use of biometric face recognition software Videmo 360 by the Hamburg police during the 2017 G20 summit has come to an end. The Hamburg Higher Administrative Court (OVG) has discontinued the proceedings, according to the city’s data protection authority. In the initial ruling, the administrative court overturned the order for the police to delete the search database and stop using the software. However, this decision is now ineffective with the recent OVG decision. The OVG has imposed the costs for the procedure on the interior authority, considering the previous state of affairs and the dispute. It is believed that the office would have lost if the dispute had continued. The data protection authority and the Senate had hoped for the Higher Administrative Court to examine the content of the case and clarify the supervisory authority’s powers over other public bodies. However, that did not happen. The recent action for a declaratory judgment filed by the interior authority was deemed inadmissible by the Higher Administrative Court. The court argued that it was a case-by-case decision and there was no risk of recurrence. The police had created a template database with a large volume of videos and photos for their use. They later justified its deletion, stating that it was no longer required for the G20 proceedings. However, the former data protection officer, Johannes Caspar, argued that law enforcement still had the option to use automated face recognition technology. The police have mentioned that this technology could be considered for other major events. Caspar called for restrictive specifications from the legislature due to the significant threats to society and privacy posed by the technology.
