Face scan proposal for German football grounds finds little support

Feb 3, 2012, 17:02 GMT

Berlin - A proposal to introduce face scanners at football stadiums in Germany has been widely rejected by fans and data protection organizations.

The idea was put forward by Lorenz Caffier, the conservative CDU interior minister of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, as a way of keeping known hooligans out of grounds.

However the chair of the parliamentary sports committee, Dagmar Freitag, joined fan groups in rejecting the idea.

Freitag told dpa Friday she believed there was 'no legal basis' for the use of face scans and that Caffier had gone 'over the top'.

German Football League president Reinhard Rauball had already rejected the idea as being inappropriate for the vast majority of fans and not workable for the clubs.

Caffier, who is also chair of Germany's conference of interior ministers, has asked for a viability study for the scanners which could be used by police to compare photos of listed hooligans.

The proposal follows a number of clashes this season in or outside stadiums at German grounds.

Although violence has usually been confined to outside the first division, clashes at a German Cup match between Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund and second-division Dynamo Dresden in October led to Dresden being barred from next season's competition.

Caffier told dpa on Thursday his aim was to keep notorious hooligans from getting into stadiums even after they had received stadium bans.

'For me this is only about using modern techniques to reduce the potential danger for the good of the overwhelming majority of spectators,' he said.