Lower Saxony's Minister of the Interior does not want to place police data in the hands of such a company. According to Palantir, data leakage is ruled out.
Palantir is a US company with opaque algorithms and questionable connections. Lower Saxony's Interior Minister Daniela Behrens (SPD) told the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung. "For me, it is crucial that highly sensitive police data can end up in the hands of such a company."
In-house developments may take longer, "but they strengthen trust in the police", said Behrens.
In response to an inquiry from the German press agency dpa, Bremen stated that there is no legal basis in the police law for the use of the system to avert danger. Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer (SPD) referred to a resolution by the Conference of Interior Ministers to further strengthen internal security and strive for digital sovereignty in Europe. AI-supported data analysis is "indispensable for our internal security", including in Bremen.
Meanwhile, Palantir rejected accusations that there is a lack of data security. "A transfer or outflow of data - for example to the USA - is technically impossible," a company spokesperson told dpa. In Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Hesse, where the police use Palantir programs, the software is operated "exclusively" on police servers.
Palantir: radio cell queries and social media
The Gotham Palantir police and intelligence software combines data sources, which is highly controversial. Calvin Baus, spokesman for the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), said: "The software merges data on a large scale. This means that if I call the police to report an accident or make a statement as a witness, I will forever be considered a suspect in Palantir's software." Radio cell queries, for example, are also used as a source if people are "simply in the wrong place at the wrong time".
It is also possible to link information from social networks, but the CCC has no information about the specific deployment. And whether the police would disclose such an operation is questionable, according to insiders.
