The Berlin police will launch their first AI-supported behavior recognition system in public spaces at Kottbusser Tor in August 2026. Cameras automatically analyze movement patterns of passersby and report suspicious situations without capturing faces. The software is provided by the Dortmund company Adesso SE for a contract value of around four million euros.
Cameras recognize behavior patterns instead of faces
At Kottbusser Tor in Kreuzberg, the police will install the first cameras of the new system starting this month. They analyze movement sequences in real-time and trigger an alarm when a pattern deviates from the norm – for example, during altercations or sudden flight. According to Interior Senator Iris Spranger, the deployed forces will not see real video images, but only schematic stick figures. “The face will not be recognizable. It is about the movement sequences,” Spranger told the Tagesspiegel. A human will still decide on a possible response; the AI merely provides a hint of a potential danger situation, according to the Interior Senator. The contract for the construction and operation of the software was awarded to the Dortmund IT company Adesso SE for a contract worth around four million euros (not independently verified), as reported by netzpolitik.org – according to the outlet, this is the first time a private company has built such infrastructure in public spaces in Germany. A comparable system is already in use in Frankfurt am Main.
Police law amendment creates legal basis until 2030
The legal basis is an amendment passed at the end of 2025 to the General Security and Order Act, which allows automated behavior analysis in public spaces in Berlin for the first time. For the so-called crime-prone areas – alongside Kottbusser Tor, also Warschauer Straße in the future – the Senate plans investments of 2.47 million euros and operating costs of 2.13 million euros by 2030, totaling around 4.6 million euros. Separately, a tender for pure object protection at buildings such as the Red City Hall and the Interior Administration on Klosterstraße is underway; for this, an additional investment of 1.76 million euros and 355,000 euros in operating costs are planned by 2027, with testing starting there in December 2026. According to the plan, further locations such as Alexanderplatz and Görlitzer Park, where the police also register increased crime rates, are to follow by 2027. The Berlin initiative comes in a week of tightened AI regulations: since August 2, new labeling requirements for AI-generated content have been in effect across the EU, though they concern a different regulatory area than Berlin’s police surveillance.
Critics doubt usefulness and data protection
The domestic policy spokesman for the Greens in the House of Representatives, Vasili Franco, is not fond of the approach: studies have shown for years that video surveillance at best displaces crime but does not effectively combat it, he said according to netzpolitik.org. Data protection critics also warn that the system could classify prolonged lying in public spaces as suspicious behavior, thereby primarily affecting homeless people who often stay in busy places like Kotti – a concern that can only be truly verified during actual operation. Earlier in the spring, a separate plan to protect the House of Representatives itself with AI cameras had failed – after protests from within the ranks of the parliamentarians, the Senate backed away from it. The Left Party, led by surveillance-critical MP Niklas Schrader, is also examining whether the underlying law can be legally challenged. The Berlin data protection officer had already criticized earlier camera plans for Kotti as a disproportionate intrusion. The fact that a private company is now operating the technical infrastructure for the first time further intensifies the question, from the critics’ perspective, of who ultimately has access to the collected movement data.
It remains open whether the police will have the effectiveness of the system evaluated independently before expanding it as planned to other locations. The tender for the separate object protection runs until the end of September 2026 – its outcome is likely to show whether Berlin will indeed rely on privately operated AI surveillance on a large scale after Kottbusser Tor.
