Germany will start testing facial recognition software in a train station in Berlin this summer. A minister said on Saturday that the testing of the software could help the police in locating and identifying terror suspects more quickly. 

According to Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, the facial recognition software will be used to identify the volunteers at Berlin's Suedkreuz Station. If the testing is successful, the software will be expanded to other locations and can be used as a tool for a range of criminal investigations.

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Some of the train stations already have video surveillance. However, Maiziere told in an interview on the website of the Tagesspiegel newspaper, they were not able to set and put the image of terrorists on the run within the software to warn them when the person appears in a station. Furthermore, the software could also be equipped with surveillance cameras in other places to use it in serious crimes if it proves its reliability.

According to the report in Tagesspiegel, the new system will only be limited in targeting criminals as it unlikely runs through legal obstacles. That would mean that there will be no infringement of the civil liberties of people not sought in an investigation.

Meanwhile, since last summer, Germany has already suffered several terror attacks. For instance, the deadly assault of a Tunisian who hijacked a truck at the Berlin Christmas market in 2016, in which 12 people are dead as the truck rammed into the crowd. The suspect tried to escape by riding a bus and then by train, passing different borders before finally being shot and killed by a police in Milan's train station.