Exberliner Issue 167, January 2018

TRAINS
criticised both facial recognition as well as
the BVG’s planned camera expansion. “The
right to privacy and the freedom of action
are fundamental human rights and a basis
for democratic societies. They must not be
undermined only to create a vague feeling of
safety,” says BlnBDI press officer Dalia Kues.
The fear that the BVG will soon start
prying into travellers’ routines is dismissed
by spokesperson Jannes Schwentuchowski.
“Firstly, unless the police asks us to save
certain footage, every recording is only
kept for 48 hours before it’s overwritten.
Secondly, of our 260 employees working in
security, only a very limited group of those
has actual access to our video feeds.”
But Kues is not only worried about how
it will affect citizens’ fundamental rights.
She’s also sceptical of the actual efficiency
of city-wide video surveillance: “At best, it
may lead to a shift of crime to other spots.
At worst, people who plan rampages and
terrorist acts could even be encouraged by
the public attention they gain,” she says.
Hakan Taş, a member of the Berlin state
parliament for Die Linke and spokesperson on
interior politics, agrees. “It’s good for catching
criminals, but for preventing crime, surveillance
contributes to a false sense of security
– the crime will just move. Something that’s
of course in the BVG’s interests,” Taş says. He
adds that he doesn’t understand why an idle
station in Zehlendorf needs the same amount
of camera coverage as Alexanderplatz.
But for both Schwentuchowski and Berlin
police spokesperson Wilfrid Wenzel, dwindling
crime numbers are the best argument
in favour of camera surveillance. According
to the BVG’s most recent security report,
the amount of assaults occurring on BVG
premises has decreased 20 percent since
2011, in a period where the number of passengers
has risen by the same proportion.
There were 3106 attacks in 2016, 2212 of
which were in the U-Bahn. Statistically, this
means passengers fall victim to a violent
crime every 2500th ride.
AN ESSENTIAL
CRIME-FIGHTING TOOL?
To what extent the decrease can be attributed
to cameras is difficult to say. The case seems
to be easier to make when it comes to surveillance
as a useful tool for crime solving. In
December 2016, seven youngsters tried to set
a homeless man on fire in the Schönleinstraße
station, but eventually turned themselves in
when they learned that their deed had been
caught on camera. And many Berliners still
remember the shocking camera footage of a
man violently kicking a 26-year-old woman
down the stairs of the Hermannstraße U-Bahn
Pavel Mezihorák
Signs at S-Bahnhof Südkreuz give passengers a choice
to pass through a “facial recognition area” or not.
“The release of the tape
made people feel less safe,
while at the same time
the camera did what it
was supposed to do – the
guy was actually found.”
station in October 2016. Released by the German
police in December, the video went viral
and the suspected perpetrator was arrested
soon after thanks to a tip-off from the public.
In July last year, he was sentenced to two years
and 11 months in prison. Schwentuchowski
acknowledges the incident as the perfect
example of the ambivalence surrounding video
surveillance. “The release of the tape made
people feel less safe, while at the same time
the camera did what it was supposed to do –
the guy was actually found,” he says.
Neither Hakan Taş nor the BlnBDI are
completely opposed to video cameras. “Video
surveillance can be meaningful for specific
purposes and at selected spots,” concedes
Kues. Both she and Taş doubt the preventive
effects, but believe it to be a good tool to catch
perpetrators after a crime has been committed.
Hakan Taş is instead appealing for a bigger,
more visible police force, something Berlin’s
“red-red-green” government has already put
into action with a plan of training 630 new officers
in 2018, up from 270 in 2016. The Berlin
government also reintroduced the use of
so-called Doppelstreifen on the BVG last year.
Originally abolished in 2003, these patrols
are made up of two BVG security guards and
two police officers. Currently, five of these
patrols are out each day, which might seem
like a drop in the ocean, but BVG’s Schwentuchowski
believes that “it has a psychological
effect, actively making people think twice.”
He’s expecting crime statistics for 2017 to
show the positive, deterrent effect of closer
cooperation between the BVG and police.
More cameras, more police, improved
technology. One thing that’s for sure is that
Berlin’s train stations are set to be better
surveilled and commuters’ whereabouts
more monitored than ever before. Will it
make us safer, especially in case of a terrorist
attack? Hard to tell. But according to
a 2017 Forsa survey, 80 percent of Berlin
citizens see increased surveillance as a necessary
evil and want more of it. n
Number of cameras in BVG stations
2016: 2300 | 2017: 2771 | 2018 (expected): 6500
JANUARY 2018
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