Digital dragnet: When images online destroy lives Public wanted notices are increasingly used for trivial cases. Experts warn of disproportionate infringements of fundamental rights and call for reform. It sounds like an absurd joke from the digital world, but in November 2025 it was bitter reality on the website of the tabloid newspaper „Berliner Zeitung“. Under an official police wanted poster showing a young man in a drugstore, the headline proclaimed that a Pokémon card thief was being sought. Because the fan did not pay the nearly 10 euros for one of the coveted mini tin boxes in Brandenburg, the police resorted to a sharp sword of law enforcement: public wanted notices via the press. In a post for the Grundrechte-Report 2026 (Basic Rights Report 2026), which Netzpolitik.org published upon the release of the "alternative report on the protection of the constitution", aspiring legal scholar Athena Möller puts her finger on the wound. With such minor offenses, she explains, the suspicion arises "that we are dealing with a disproportionate interference with the right to informational self-determination." Publicly branded Similar reports have often been found in the media over the past few months. The co-editor of the volume warns that this should not only alarm data protection advocates. The spectrum of people who could suddenly find themselves in the digital spotlight without their consent is broad. It ranges from witnesses and missing persons to suspects, among whom there are always wrongly accused individuals. For example, in February, the Magdeburg police searched for a man who had pocketed a lost wallet in a supermarket using press appeals. As it turned out, he was an honest finder: the wallet had long been back in the hands of its rightful owner by the time the search began. Nevertheless, the high-resolution photos of the wrongly