Berlin’s Kottbusser Tor has become the latest public space in Germany to receive continuous, AI-assisted video surveillance. Since October 28, 30 cameras have been recording activity around the busy roundabout, while software analyzes the footage in real time for movements that could indicate criminal acts.
When the system identifies a potentially suspicious scene, human monitors are expected to review the alert and may send police officers to intervene. The surveillance was launched shortly after an opening ceremony for the technology, placing Kottbusser Tor alongside Mannheim and Hamburg as locations where automated behavioral monitoring is being tested.
The system operates in an area marked by heavy police presence and visible social problems. Kottbusser Tor has long been classified as a crime-heavy location, allowing suspicion-free checks and searches. A police station was installed on the site in 2023, and the area became a knife-free zone last year. Police reportedly devoted between 3,500 and 7,000 staff hours per month to the location.
During observations at the site, ordinary and chaotic scenes unfolded continuously: people sleeping on mattresses, drinking, arguing, using drugs and gathering near the subway entrances. A brief confrontation involving a wheelchair user and a woman did not result in a police intervention. Officers later left the nearby station but did not approach the people involved. It remained unclear whether the cameras had failed to capture the incident, whether lighting or the camera range had affected the recording, or whether the event was judged harmless by the software or a human operator.
People in the area cannot know whether the software has interpreted their behavior as suspicious or whether police action might follow. Notices inform visitors about the surveillance, but they are relatively small, and they do not state that recorded data may be used to train the system.
The technology searches for patterns found in training material. According to a statement from Staige, the system was trained in Berlin using real and AI-generated scenes involving exchanges of blows, kicks, forceful pushing or pulling that results in ground contact, and fights on the ground. The company’s promotional material includes AI-generated scenes that the software identifies as violence.
The system is also intended to learn from activity recorded at Kottbusser Tor. Once human reviewers confirm or reject an alert, the observed movement patterns can be used for further training, according to a Staige spokesperson. Critics cited in the report warn that movement patterns can function as highly personal identifiers, similar to a biometric fingerprint.
The surveillance has prompted concerns about a shift from investigating suspected crimes to generating suspicion from routine activity. The report describes this as a form of pre-suspicion that conflicts with the presumption of innocence, because people are monitored before any specific offense has occurred.
The effectiveness of behavioral surveillance remains uncertain. In Mannheim, police have reportedly been unable to identify a case over eight years in which the system prevented or solved a crime. Information released about a trial in Hamburg indicated 99 false alarms for every positive result.
Berlin’s system is being introduced as politicians and security authorities promote a wider range of AI-supported tools. These include systems intended to analyze faces and compare them with watchlists, searches for biometric data online, and software designed to connect databases and create profiles of individuals.
The legal framework for using data to train such systems, including sharing data with manufacturers, was approved by Berlin’s outgoing governing coalition shortly before Christmas 2025. The next state government will decide how these powers develop. The Greens and the Left have filed a legal challenge against what they describe as an excessive expansion of police powers, while the SPD-led interior administration and Berlin police have already launched the behavioral scanner.
Interior Senator Iris Spranger has said that additional cameras should be installed this year at Warschauer Brücke, the Red Town Hall, the interior administration and the Jewish Museum. Further locations planned for next year include Alexanderplatz and Görlitzer Park and its surrounding neighborhood. Covert video surveillance is also permitted at critical infrastructure sites.
Kottbusser Tor is being used as a test site because its visible social problems make the public more receptive to promises of technological security. Yet residents and visitors interviewed for the report questioned whether cameras would improve conditions. The surveillance takes place beside a drug consumption room, homeless people and others living with addiction, poverty or unstable housing.
The result is a widening system of control whose success remains unclear. At Kottbusser Tor, cameras, bright floodlights, police infrastructure and automated analysis now form part of everyday life, while the people being monitored have little way to know how their behavior is being interpreted.
Sources: netzpolitik.org.