Anyone who, as a police officer in Berlin, does not provide enough information for data queries is now threatened with severe penalties Photo: Timo Beurich
By Axel Lier
The data on all operations in Berlin are stored in the police’s computer process system. In the past, there have always been unauthorized inquiries from police officers – a data protection violation! Now the management of the authorities has had enough: Anyone who does not fill out a process correctly will be severely punished.
According to BZ information, LKA boss Christian Steiof recently informed his employees about this. According to information from police unions, he complained that the police were repeatedly criticized for unauthorized inquiries and thus attracted public attention. In the past few years, between 15 and 24 investigations have been initiated against police officers for this reason.
Background: Access to the police database POLIKS (state police system for information, communication and processing) is logged internally and can thus be determined retrospectively.
There are already many regulations, business instructions and instructions for queries in POLIKS. Police officers even have to sign every year that they comply with all regulations. But that’s obviously not enough!
According to the LKA boss, there is a lack of the right “supplements” when it comes to “reason for the query”. There, every official must document exactly who and why required information about which process. A simple typed “processing” is not enough – on the contrary.
Together with the management of the authorities, a decision has now been made to punish such violations relentlessly. There is a reprimand for a first violation, after which the penalties are even stricter and higher.
According to the police, around 20,000 employees are authorized to make queries in “POLIKS”.