Overview

• CDU state leader Manuel Hagel proposes changing the police law so municipalities can decide where to use AI-assisted cameras rather than limiting deployment to designated hotspots.
• Hagel argues AI would trigger only on defined patterns such as weapons or suspicious movements before a police officer reviews alerts, but any legal change would require Green Party support.
• Rhineland-Palatinate data protector Dieter Kugelmann stays open to pilots yet highlights privacy risks and weak results, citing a €30,000 Ludwigshafen trial that produced a single €132 fine and showed the need for live monitoring staff.
• Hesse provides the current legal template in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel, where AI is limited to searches for missing persons or terror suspects and each search needs a judicial order.
• Local initiatives continue as Kaiserslautern examines AI-supported surveillance and Tübingen’s plan for a bus station faces a threatened lawsuit, even as a Mannheim survey reports over 80% support for city cameras with 58% feeling safer.