In 2016 documents surfaced evincing that the Danish police and the Danish intelligence service had bought policing software from the US firm Palantir (AlgorithmWatch 2019). The system sources information from various diverse data silos, centralizing “document and case handling systems, investigation support systems, forensic and mobile forensic systems, as well as different types of acquiring systems such as open source acquisition, and information exchange between external police bodies” (ibid). While originally adopted as an anti-terrorism measure, experts theorize that the software will undoubtedly serve as the foundation for predictive policing initiatives (ibid). Two years prior, the Danish police implemented an automatic license plate control system that was mounted on police cars and scanned license plates in order to identify persons of interest in real-time. Human rights advocates have called for more public oversight and a general transparency in regard to the surveillance systems put in place by the Danish government (ibid).
