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Faeser wants IP addresses to be stored without cause – Buschmann, on the other hand

It was a practical test that put the skills of the German police authorities in the field of cybercrime in a bad light: last summer, the editors of the ZDF program "Neo Magazin Royale" by satirist Jan Böhmermann reported several hate messages from the Internet.

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Faeser wants IP addresses to be stored without cause – Buschmann, on the other hand

It was a practical test that put the skills of the German police authorities in the field of cybercrime in a bad light: last summer, the editors of the ZDF program "Neo Magazin Royale" by satirist Jan Böhmermann reported several hate messages from the Internet. Later, the editors asked for the results of the police investigation. The result was sobering.

Because in some federal states, the officials had not even taken the ad. In other countries, the investigations dragged on. And while the officials in one state were still investigating, the authors of the hate messages - including tangible death threats - had long been convicted in another state.

The police then had to take a lot of criticism for the sluggishness and lack of awareness of the problem of individual officials, but above all for the lack of coordination and insufficient communication between the federal states.

The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has now responded. At a meeting of the authorities in Wiesbaden that opened on Tuesday, BKA President Holger Münch presented a digital query tool that the federal and state police authorities should use to better coordinate investigations into criminal proceedings on the Internet. The ZDF test showed "how urgent digitally networked, resource-saving cooperation in the police network is," said Münch.

The input mask of the software, which is supposed to organize the information chaos, resembles the start page of a conventional Internet search engine - and it also works in a similar way. The officers can enter information from investigations into cybercrime, so-called cyber entities, such as e-mail addresses or websites, into the search field.

The software compares the data with queries from police authorities in other federal states. If the information has already been entered there in the search mask, the program will show a hit. The officials thus know that other departments are also interested in the information available to them. This allows them to exchange information and bring together the results of investigations. "The chances of success in identifying the perpetrator increase and duplication of work is avoided," said BKA President Münch.

In the police, the method of the interrogation instrument is referred to as "deconfliction" (problem avoidance). The software is part of a so-called "cyber tool box" and has been around for some time. As a reaction to the ZDF research, the query options have now been expanded. Officers can now also match social media usernames like Facebook or Twitter. Simultaneous investigations by several authorities into the same facts, as revealed in the ZDF program, should thus be avoided.

The catch: the officials can use the query tool - but they don't have to. When asked by WELT, a spokeswoman for the BKA confirmed that entering the data was not mandatory. Parallel investigations by several police stations into the same hate message are therefore still possible.

According to the BKA, the number of hate messages on the Internet has increased continuously in recent years. "Hate and hate speech, including threats, calls for violence and attacks, are spreading at breakneck speed in analogue and digital space," said BKA President Münch. They have become “a concrete danger” for democracy.

The police can usually only find the authors of hate messages with the help of IP addresses. IP addresses are assigned when you dial into the Internet and can be clearly assigned to Internet connections. For the police, they are therefore usually the most promising investigative approach for identifying suspects. Currently, however, the IP addresses are usually deleted after a few days.

Münch therefore spoke out in favor of “the obligation to store IP addresses without cause”. The European Court of Justice expressly allowed this in its judgment of September this year. Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faser (SPD) is also in favor of the introduction of the storage requirement. In the traffic light coalition, however, the project is controversial. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) has already spoken out against it.

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