Berlin has begun operating an AI-supported video-surveillance system permanently around Kottbusser Tor. Thirty police cameras monitor the area, while software analyzes live footage for behaviors that could indicate a crime or an emergency.
According to privacy advocate Tom Jennissen of Digitale Gesellschaft, the system does more than make surveillance possible: it continuously analyzes everyone in view. The current system reportedly focuses on two categories of behavior—movements suggesting physical violence and people lying on the ground.
The technology does not currently target several of the most common offenses recorded at Kottbusser Tor. Drug-related offenses accounted for 560 of roughly 3,400 offenses recorded there in 2025. Theft, robbery, burglary and handling stolen goods together accounted for 1,068 cases. The cameras also cannot detect offenses requiring audio, such as insults, or fare evasion occurring on public transport.
The focus on people lying on the ground has drawn particular criticism because many of those affected are homeless. “Dude,” a drug-dependent man who spends significant time at Kottbusser Tor, said additional police attention could be dangerous for homeless people. He recalled hostile encounters with residents and police during the four years he was homeless.
A study commissioned by Berlin’s Senate Department for Science, Health and Care describes the open drug scene as fragmented and shaped by displacement, unstable places of consumption and heavy daily pressures. It concludes that repressive measures such as automated camera surveillance are not sustainably effective and mainly move activity to other locations. Berlin’s interior administration has also acknowledged that people of interest to police may move into side streets because of surveillance at Kottbusser Tor.
The legal framework does not specify every type of behavior the system should identify. Information released in response to a request from The Greens said the software is intended to detect physical confrontations, assaults and people who are helpless or lying on the ground. The area is also designated as a weapons and knife-prohibited zone, allowing police to conduct checks without a specific prior suspicion.
Social workers fear that surveillance will make it harder to reach their clients. Lukas, who works for the street-social-work organization Gangway, said people without a permanent address could be pushed away from the area. “Then it may be that we simply can’t find them anymore,” he said. He also expects that clients required to leave Germany may stop visiting the square.
Lukas further warned that recordings could undermine the trust between social workers and their clients. If he were identified through surveillance and summoned as a witness, he could be required to testify about incidents involving people he supports, potentially compromising his de-escalation role.
Views among local businesses are divided. One shop worker expressed concern that behavioral-analysis technology could eventually be used against politically active people, pointing to facial-recognition practices in Turkey. Another kiosk operator welcomed the cameras, saying the area was often crowded with homeless people and affected by violence, and that surveillance made it possible to see what was happening.
A social worker at a nearby homeless-support facility described the system as political action unlikely to produce results. In her view, vulnerable people would be displaced and social services would be left to deal with the consequences. She argued that funding would be better directed toward social programs or renovating a nearby daycare center.
The system was presented in October at an event involving a staged fight attended by Berlin Interior Senator Iris Spranger. The police had previously described the people shown in the demonstration as anonymized through abstract stick-figure representations, but the footage was ultimately viewed in recognizable form.
The current phase, officially described as a trial in real-world operation, is intended to check the system’s functionality and stability during daily use rather than evaluate whether it improves public safety. Jennissen doubts the cameras will be dismantled, arguing that once such technology has been deployed, it is difficult to stop. “Kottbusser Tor is not a testing laboratory,” he said, because that would imply the project was genuinely open to different outcomes.
Sources: netzpolitik.org.