Skin color out, origin in - how useful is the new search system?

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Fedpol removes skin color - a step forward?

It's now official: Swiss police officers are no longer allowed to state the color of their skin when conducting searches. The federal government has removed the controversial characteristic from the national RIPOL search system. The reason given: Skin color is too imprecise a criterion that is perceived culturally differently - and potentially discriminatory. According to Fedpol, international pressure also played a role. Foreign authorities are reacting increasingly sensitively to such information in international databases.

But what sounds like an important step in the fight against racial profiling is actually more complex. Because where one characteristic is removed, other, equally sensitive categories remain - for example, details such as "Asian", "Arab" or "from the Balkans". Is that really better?

Expert warns: "Descriptive is not discriminatory"

Police law expert Patrice Martin Zumsteg from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences takes a critical view of the development. For him, it is clear that a distinction must be made between predictive and descriptive profiling. One is problematic - the other is simply necessary.

In concrete terms, this means that there is a difference between checking someone because they have a certain skin color or origin - or whether you are specifically looking for a person who has these characteristics according to witness statements. According to Zumsteg, skin color can be "a helpful criterion" in search situations - especially in child abduction or missing persons cases.

The blanket exclusion of this characteristic is therefore not only overly cautious, but could even make investigations more difficult in an emergency.

Origin instead of skin color - is this really progress?

Fedpol itself emphasizes that it wants to work with more precise attributions such as "Asian" or "Arab" in future. But this raises new questions. These terms are no less vague and are also subject to subjective interpretations - not to mention the fact that they can also reinforce discriminatory stereotypes. An "Asian" appearance cannot be defined objectively - and what does "from the Balkans" actually mean?

These terms can also tip over into racist patterns in police searches - the problem is therefore only shifted, not solved.

More courage to be honest

Anyone who thinks you can make the police non-discriminatory with a cosmetic database clean-up is very much mistaken. Deleting skin color and using terms of origin instead is like replacing sugar with honey - the basic problem remains, it just sounds nicer.

When police officers describe people, they need realistic, comprehensible information - not politically softened categories. The decisive factor is how these characteristics are handled, not whether they are in the system. An algorithm does not discriminate - people do.