In a ruling dated October 6, 2020 (Case No.: 11 LC 149/16), the Higher Administrative Court of Lower Saxony declared the years-long, indiscriminate video surveillance by cameras operated by the Hanover Police Directorate unlawful. This decision brings to an end a legal dispute that had lasted nine years. The plaintiff was a member of the Hanover-based initiative freiheitsfoo, who had already successfully sued the Hanover Administrative Court in 2010 and 2011 to prohibit the use of various cameras.
The subject of the now-decided proceedings was a total of 78 cameras operated by the Hanover Police Directorate in 2011 without cause and, in some cases, around the clock. After the Hanover Administrative Court had already ordered the labeling of several cameras and prohibited the use of 56 cameras in judgments dated July 14, 2011, and June 9, 2016, the Hanover Police Directorate deactivated most of the cameras in question or transferred them to the Lower Saxony State Authority for Road Construction and Transport for use there. Nevertheless, the Hanover Police Directorate appealed to the Higher Administrative Court regarding the use of one permanently operated and seven temporarily operated cameras, the operation of which had been prohibited by the Administrative Court. The Higher Administrative Court has now confirmed the illegality of using these cameras. According to the court, the cameras were either not marked or only insufficiently marked, and the annual police crime statistics did not justify the necessity of temporarily deployed cameras, as the court explained in its oral reasoning.
“We are convinced that the Lower Saxony Police Act (“NPOG”) also violates constitutional requirements with regard to indiscriminate camera surveillance. The lack of clear indication of the surveillance and the insufficient justification for it are just two of our many criticisms of indiscriminate surveillance,” states Michael Ebeling, who led the lawsuit for the initiative freiheitsfoo. “But even though we would have liked to submit the legal basis to the Federal Constitutional Court for review, this ruling is a huge success,” Ebeling continues. “Criminologists recently confirmed in a study that police cameras essentially have no preventive effect, i.e., no crime-preventing effect. That alone should be reason enough to question the use of stationary police cameras per se.”
“The police department must now deactivate all remaining cameras that are the subject of the dispute and completely redesign the signage for other cameras not yet included in the lawsuit, as well as review the necessity of the cameras,” explains Göttingen-based lawyer Sven Adam, who represented the plaintiff before the Higher Administrative Court, regarding the significance of the proceedings. “Currently, at least, no stationary camera used by the police in Hanover is likely to comply with legal requirements,” Adam concludes.
For further questions, please contact Michael Ebeling (Mobile: 01577 / 39 19 170) and attorney Sven Adam using the contact details provided.
