Technology: This is how artificial intelligence should help police work – Panorama

If ATM bombers, who destroyed more than 450 machines in Germany in 2023, left behind shoe prints, Dingell believes specially trained artificial intelligence could be used for this purpose. The patterns can then be customized for specific types of shoes. So far, several thousand different shoe prints have already been collected across the country, Dingell says. Objective: To identify the perpetrators through shoe treads. Dingell says the system is about to be rolled out, he hopes, in 2024.

Is it used to forge documents and also in football?

According to the German Research Center in Kaiserslautern, police can use new procedures to track down forged documents. The AI ​​system can recognize minimal differences between printers.

Video cameras that use intelligent algorithms and software to find suspicious movement patterns are also being tested in southern Germany and Hamburg, for example. AI must be trained using data and images. Biometric data is not recorded, and people's age, gender or ethnic affiliation are not determined, as confirmed by the Hamburg Interior Ministry in 2023.

Hoffmann, Berlin's AI coordinator at LKA in Berlin, cites football stadiums as a possible example, where troublemakers could be screened with the help of facial recognition. However, the Berlin police do not have their own data models for this or other AI systems.

Regarding the crimes that occurred on New Year's Eve, Deputy Chairman of the Hamburg Police Federation, Lars Osburg, recently said: “It is no longer possible to explain why it is necessary to deploy large numbers of forces to protect events, but rather the opportunities that artificial intelligence provides in the search for known criminals.” And dangerous people.”

Experts fear more manipulated and deepfake videos

Cybersecurity expert Christian Dohr from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam sees the biggest risk in the near future as the fact that deepfakes are increasingly being used in AI-assisted disinformation campaigns. So, it's not the counselor speaking in the video, it's a digital twin.

Dor believes that manipulation is used to influence elections and destabilize state systems. “The large hacking groups are nation-state driven. Naturally, they also have a very strong interest in artificial intelligence.” In the summer of 2022, the then mayor of Berlin, Franziska Giffi (SPD), spoke via video to someone who looked like Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko, but was not Klitschko.

There are strict limits to the use of artificial intelligence

However, there are also strict limits to the use of AI systems in policing. There are concerns because risks also appear for innocent citizens and basic rights can be compromised.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution had already declared the regulations in Hessen and Hamburg unconstitutional. It is about the analysis software that police officers use to search various databases with one click in order to discover mutual connections in huge amounts of data. According to the Hesse State Police, this arrest was made in connection with a raid on Reich citizens. In December 2023, the European Union agreed to tougher rules, and this could have consequences for AI tools in police. “If we wait for lawyers to have a watertight text, it will take five years,” says Hoffmann, the LKA official in Berlin.