Polizeipräsidium Mannheim

The Baden-Württemberg Interior Ministry announced on 3 December 2018 the start of algorithm-based video surveillance in Mannheim, with software developed by the Fraunhofer Institute IOSB that recognises behaviour patterns such as hitting, running, kicking and falling and alerts the police situation centre; it stated that the technology does not rely on facial recognition. netzpolitik.org (18 October 2025) reports that Mannheim has 70 public-space cameras, of which 46 run the motion analysis, that alarms are checked by staff in the command centre, and that the police could not say how many alarms led to detected crimes. The interior ministry told the Landtag on 12 December 2023 (Drucksache 17/5816) that the originally planned five-year period was not enough and that the project, which the city's contribution to the answer calls a joint pilot project ('Pilotprojekt Videoschutz'), had been extended by three years to November 2026, with a final evaluation with scientific involvement planned for the start of 2027; it said the software's alarms were then used only for system development and were not logged in a standardised way. The 2018 announcement put the state's investment at about 700,000 euros and the city's contribution at 900,000 euros. The status is recorded as a trial because the project is time-limited and due to end in November 2026; no decision on permanent use has been found.