Saxony's new police law: AI pursuit and facial recognition approved After months of tug-of-war, the Saxon state parliament has passed far-reaching powers for investigators. Civil rights activists have sharply criticized the move. On Wednesday, after a contentious debate, the Saxon state parliament passed a comprehensive reform of the police law. With a narrow majority of 60 to 53 votes, the parliament paved the way for an extensive expansion of digital surveillance powers in the Free State, with some amendments to the previous government draft. The ruling minority coalition of CDU and SPD was largely dependent on the support of the BSW, from whose ranks eleven of the fifteen members of parliament voted for the legislative proposal. Opposing this were the 'no' votes from the Green, Left, and AfD parliamentary groups. One SPD member abstained. The new regulatory framework, which comes into effect as early as today, Thursday, marks a turning point in Saxon security policy: it equips the police with a broad arsenal of digital investigation tools that reach far into the digital space and public life. Among the core elements of the reform is the permission to use Artificial Intelligence for automated video surveillance at crime hotspots. These systems will in the future be able to track individuals across multiple cameras and recognize behavioral patterns, dangerous objects, and faces in real-time as part of remote biometric identification. Furthermore, the authorities will be empowered to use covert license plate scanners to detect stolen vehicles in flowing traffic. The scope of action is also being expanded on the internet: investigators are allowed to use systems that biometrically match faces and voices with freely accessible network data. For investigations in encrypted messenger services such as WhatsApp, the use of state Trojans for source telecommunications surveillance is also available. In the analog domain,