Interview on networking for the police work of the future
The topic “The police of the day after tomorrow” was discussed on 15. and 16. November 2023 the 3rd network meeting of the innovation laboratories of the police forces of the federal states and Austria took place at the Agentur für Innovation in der Cybersicherheit GmbH (Cyberagentur). The focus of this year’s meeting was on networking and mutual exchange as well as innovative methods.
Over 40 police officers from 14 federal states and Austria came to Halle (Saale) to present the latest innovations in the field of policing of the future and to share their experiences in the process of developing ideas. The Cyberagentur organized three formats for the participants in order to promote joint ideas. These included project presentations in a poster session, reflection on failures and the resulting learning effects in the so-called fuck-up session and the development of creative ideas for police work of the future in the “LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®” workshop.
The initiator of the first network meeting in 2021 was the InnoLab of the Saxony Police. We talked about the basic idea and the future of the network meeting with the President of the Police Administration Office of the Saxony Police, Dr. Jörg Michaelis, who had traveled to Halle (Saale) especially to welcome the professional colleagues.
Question: Why did the idea arise two years ago to initiate a platform for the exchange of information between the respective police innovation labs?
Ultimately, practical experience has shown that there are many parallel development projects in the field of police IT that are obviously not even aware of each other. There was clearly a lack of networking in advance.
In principle, the competing development of different approaches to the same problem can also be very stimulating. We see this internationally, for example, in research into different approaches to achieving an economical nuclear fusion reactor.
As the head of a police authority, however, I am fundamentally in a different situation: as security authorities, we are not a research institute. And please don’t forget: science can also make mistakes; it must accept the risk of failure from the outset. The police, on the other hand, are primarily responsible for prosecuting criminal offenses and ensuring public safety and order. The citizens of our country rightly demand a police force that does not experiment with police assets. We have to use our resources very purposefully and sparingly because our budget and, in particular, our staffing levels are not designed for such major scientific challenges.
In order to conserve resources, I want to achieve early networking of the innovation labs through the Innovation Lab for Digitalization of the Saxony Police (InnoLab). The official committee structures of the security authorities have not yet provided for such an early exchange of ideas. This is why we organized the first nationwide meeting of the innovation labs in Dresden, followed by a meeting in North Rhine-Westphalia.
I am extremely grateful to the Cyberagentur that they are now perpetuating this initiative with its far-reaching possibilities. It is important to me that they favor a thematic approach and carry out active networking. We will gladly continue to be their partner in the future.
Question: Where is the police work of the day after tomorrow on the timeline towards the future?
In my welcoming address at this year’s national meeting of innovation labs in Halle (Saale), I pointed out that we are currently consolidating and prioritizing the current tasks facing police IT throughout Germany. There is still a lot of homework to be done. In many cases, even solutions that represent the current state of the art are not yet mature enough for us to be able to implement them reliably in day-to-day police work. This area of development and implementation alone presents us with huge resource problems. I also see this as a major challenge for my colleagues in their central offices throughout Germany.
So when we talk about the police work of the future, I would put it like this: We are currently trying to gain a firm footing in the here and now. Only those who have such a solid starting position will have a “clear” head for really new things in the future.
This is precisely why we in Saxony designed the InnoLab as a think tank and expressly relieved it of ongoing operational and development tasks. I have been in favor of this freedom of thought – regardless of current (and extremely important) day-to-day problems – from the very beginning and continue to consider it indispensable. Even if we certainly cannot implement everything immediately, we must nevertheless maintain a clear view of the future.
Question: Where is the development of the police going and what role will innovation labs and this form of creative exchange play in this?
I see the development of the police in the area of IT very much as a joint development between the various states and the federal government in order to save resources.
The innovation labs will play an important role as an advisory tool for their respective authorities. You could perhaps say that, like sailors in the lookout of a sailing ship, they keep an eye on the horizon in order to put the captain and crew in the right picture in good time.
Allow me to make one more comment: this path will also be accompanied by many frustrations and setbacks.
Question: What relationship do you see between the innovations for the police, which are pushing for rapid implementation, and the Cyberagentur’s view of the future of cyber security in the next 10 to 15 years?
In any case, this remains an area of tension: first and foremost, the police must be permanently and immediately available to citizens. This localization in the here and now always entails a very strong prioritization of all resources in the present. This will continue to be the case in the future.
However, I am fully aware that the really big challenges in IT cannot be solved immediately. Just think, for example, of the consequences of quantum computing for our existing encryption systems. Of course, it also worries everyone in positions of responsibility that they may not have started actively looking for solutions in their own area in good time.
That’s why it’s a really good thing that there is a research organization like the Cyberagentur that thinks ahead on such topics for us security authorities. I expect our InnoLab in particular to focus on these topics in cooperation with the Cyberagentur. Only in a second step will the security authorities be able to decide on implementation strategies. I see ZITiS and P20, for example, as technological intermediaries between research results and prototype developments.
For the Cyberagentur, the added value of such a cooperation is determined by the fact that, on the one hand, you receive practice-relevant use cases directly from your customer and, on the other hand, that we can offer a realistic test and evaluation environment so that your research results can be validated in a realistic context as early as possible.
The InnoLab of the Saxony Police Administration Office will certainly accompany them on this path in the future.
Further information and registration:
https://www.polizei.sachsen.de/de/49463.htm
https://www.polizei.sachsen.de/de/76821.htm
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