German central criminal information system INPOL

German central criminal information system INPOL
Excluded from graph
Deployment Status	Ongoing
Deployment Start Date
Deployment End Date
Events	* uses Record type Property:Has event Start (1 January 2011, Documented, ?, No description)
City	Berlin
Country	Germany
Involved Entities
Keywords
Technology Deployed	Cognitec Face VACS DBScan, Oracle Software
Information Certainty	Documented
Primary sources
Datasets Used	German central criminal information system INPOL
Deployment Type	Criminal investigations
runs search software
managed by	German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt)
used by
Potentially used by
Information Certainty	0
Summary	0

Graph View ↗︎

Information Certainty: Documented

Deployment Purpose: Criminal investigations, Missing Person Recovery

Summary

Germany has utilized automated facial recognition technology since 2008 through its central criminal information system, INPOL (Informationssystem Polizei), managed by the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), the federal criminal police office. INPOL, operated on Oracle Software, stores data such as names, birth details, fingerprints, mugshots, and DNA records, though DNA information is not automatically logged. Facial images of suspects, arrestees, and missing persons are included. The system employs anatomical features from surveillance footage or images to match against INPOL data using Cognitec Face VACS software. As of March 2020, INPOL held 5.8 million images of 3.6 million individuals, accessible to all German police stations. The BKA also shares biometric data internationally through the Prüm cooperation.

• Details

Products and Institutions:

Product Deployed	Cognitec Face VACS DBScan Oracle Software
Institutions ⠉	Cognitec Systems Oracle Corporation
Datasets	German central criminal information system INPOL
Search software

Status and Events:

Status	Ongoing
Events	Start (1 January 2011, Documented, ?, No description)
Start Date
End Date

Users:

Involved Entities
Managed by	German Federal Criminal Police Office (Bundeskriminalamt)
Used by

Location:

City	Berlin
Country ⠉	Germany

Loading map...

{"format":"leaflet","minzoom":false,"maxzoom":false,"limit":50,"offset":0,"link":"all","sort":[""],"order":[],"headers":"show","mainlabel":"","intro":"","outro":"","searchlabel":"... further results","default":"","import-annotation":false,"width":"auto","height":"350px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"zoom":5,"defzoom":14,"layers":["OpenStreetMap"],"image layers":[],"overlays":[],"resizable":false,"fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"cluster":false,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clustermaxradius":80,"clusterspiderfy":true,"geojson":"","clicktarget":"","showtitle":true,"hidenamespace":false,"template":"","userparam":"","activeicon":"","pagelabel":false,"ajaxcoordproperty":"","ajaxquery":"","locations":[{"text":"\u003Cb\u003E\u003Ca href=\"/wiki/index.php/German_central_criminal_information_system_INPOL\" title=\"German central criminal information system INPOL\"\u003EGerman central criminal information system INPOL\u003C/a\u003E\u003C/b\u003E","title":"German central criminal information system INPOL","link":"","lat":52.51704,"lon":13.38886,"icon":""}],"imageLayers":[]}

Description

Germany has been using automated facial recognition technologies to identify criminal activity since 2008 using a central criminal information system called INPOL (Informationssystem Polizei), maintained by the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), which is the federal criminal police office. INPOL uses Oracle Software and includes the following information: name, aliases, date and place of birth, nationality, fingerprints, mugshots, appearance, information about criminal histories such as prison sentences or violence of an individual, and DNA information. However, DNA information is not automatically recorded (TELEFI 2021).

The INPOL database includes facial images of suspects, arrestees, missing persons, and convicted individuals. For the purpose of facial recognition, anatomical features of a person's face or head as seen on video surveillance or images are used as a material to match with data in INPOL. The facial recognition system compares templates and lists all the matches ordered by degree of accordance. The BKA has specific personnel visually analysing the system's choices and providing an assessment, defining the probability of identifying a person. This assessment can be used in a court of law if necessary (Bundeskriminalamt, n.d.b). Searches in the database are conducted by using Cognitec Face VACS software (TELEFI 2021).

As of March 2020, INPOL consists of 5,8 million images of about 3,6 million individuals. All police stations in Germany have access to this database. The BKA saves biometric data and can be used by other ministries as well, for instance, to identify asylum seekers. Furthermore, the data is shared in the context of the Prüm cooperation on an international level (mostly fingerprints and DNA patterns). Furthermore, the BKA saves DNA analysis data as part of INPOL, accessible for all police stations in Germany. That database contains 1,2 million data sets (Bundeskriminalamt, n.d.a). Other recorded facial images, for instance, driver’s licenses or passports, are not included in the search, and the database is mainly used for police work (TELEFI 2021).

Bundeskriminalamt (n.d.a). Erkennungsdienst. Retrieved on 18 April 2021 from https://www.bka.de/DE/UnsereAufgaben/Ermittlungsunterstuetzung/Erkennungsdienst/erkennungsdienst_node.html;jsessionid=692BF71E167806F9A74B3147206BC657.live23021

Bundeskriminalamt (n.d.b). Gesichtserkennung. Retrieved on 18 April 2021 from https://www.bka.de/DE/UnsereAufgaben/Ermittlungsunterstuetzung/Kriminaltechnik/Biometrie/Gesichtserkennung/gesichtserkennung_node.html2

TELEFI Project (January, 2021). Summary Report of the project “Towards the European Level Exchange of Facial Images”. Retrieved on 18 April 2021 from https://www.telefi-project.eu/sites/default/files/TELEFI_SummaryReport.pdf3 --- By citebot ---

This page uses the following references:

• References#_SCITE15285e7ab54657853b9d95537ac06d1d
• References#_SCITEf409b6fed46f6ca85561d7ce7bb1392d
• References#_SCITE169b5315e2d94f99d6503d35f09e8be2

--- end citebot ---