Police officers in Berlin, Germany are angry that they are now forced to wear name badges on their uniforms for identification by the general public, in a controversial move introduced last month. Germany’s two main police unions are gearing up to fight this legislation, arguing that it is part of a nationwide trend that erodes personal privacy and endangers their employees personal safety.



Name badges or name tags have been a requirement for years in other western countries including Britain and the USA, where all uniformed officers are identifiable by the identification fixings on their uniforms.

The new security id badge requirement for the German police is a result of long-standing demands from human rights groups including Amnesty International, who identified numerous cases where “a lack of identification hindered investigation of police abuses”. After months of controversy, officials backed down and said ID numbers were appropriate and surnames not required. However, for some, the move to name tags is deemed as an attack on their personal safety.

“I’m afraid… We deal daily with criminals and people who want to hurt us”. Said German officer Thomas S.

Last year in England, Boris Johnson’s deputy mayor called for disciplinary action to be taken against officers that didn’t display their id badges. Some officers have been known to cover up their identifying epaulettes in strenuous circumstances, for example at protests or demonstrations, and even refusing to answer when asked their name or ID number. In the UK at least, police officers rarely work in towns immediately neighbouring their places of residence, for the very reason of being identified by previously apprehended criminals or their acquaintances. It may be that although ‘accepted’, displaying openly visible name badge identification isn’t met with cheers of approval from working officers. It remains to be seen how the squabble in Germany will play out.

Source - http://www.thelocal.de/national/20110818-36995.html