Greece, Nationwide
Hellenic Police
Multimodal Handheld Biometric Identification, supplied by Intracom Telecom
DiscontinuedJournalismPAI-B12130F6
- Body
- Hellenic Police
- Country
- Greece
- Area
- Nationwide
- Technology
- Multimodal Handheld Biometric Identification
- Supplier
- Intracom Telecom
- Status
- Discontinued
Use has ended, on the evidence of a public source. - Stage
- Withdrawn
- Since
- 2019
- Legal basis
- No valid legal basis for the processing, according to Hellenic DPA Decision 45/2025 (31 December 2025), which held that any productive operation under the current legal framework would be unlawful and warned the Hellenic Police not to activate the system.
- Oversight
- Hellenic Data Protection Authority
- Evidence
- Journalism
Named reporting by a reputable outlet - Source
- Homo Digitalis, 15 January 2026; Lawspot, 15 January 2026; EDRi
- Last checked
- Record code
PAI-B12130F6
Notes
1,000 handheld devices for Hellenic Police performing facial recognition, fingerprint ID, and document/plate scanning during street stops, matching against national, EU and international databases including SIS II, VIS, EURODAC and Interpol-linked systems. Contract signed 2019 with Intracom Telecom, €4m, 75% funded by the EU's Internal Security Fund. Devices were delivered fully functional. Following a complaint by Homo Digitalis (Mar 2020), the Hellenic DPA ruled the whole programme unlawful in Decision 45/2025, dated 31 Dec 2025 -- an EU-funded, fully procured and delivered biometric system found unlawful after the money was spent. Reported as targeted at stops of undocumented migrants, placing it in borders/immigration as much as ordinary policing. Also in Greece: the Ministry of Asylum and Migration was fined a record €175,000 by the Hellenic DPA over the KENTAUROS and HYPERION border/camp management systems.
Update, November 2026. According to Homo Digitalis, which brought the complaint (press release, 15 January 2026), the devices were delivered in September 2021 and the system "has only been used on a pilot basis". Lawspot (15 January 2026), reporting the decision, says a Hellenic Police representative told the Authority at the hearing that the system had been in pilot operation "για μικρό χρονικό διάστημα" (for a short time) and is not in use at present; the Authority noted that this was not in the police's written submission and that doubt remained about possible unlawful processing. The Authority found no valid legal basis, held that any productive operation under the current legal framework would be unlawful, and issued a warning not to activate the system. It found that the data protection impact assessment had not been carried out in time during the pilot, but imposed no fine, because processing was limited to the pilot and no harm to data subjects was shown. The status of discontinued reflects the end of the pilot, as the police described it, and the Authority's warning; no plan to resume has been reported.