Berlin police are looking for a swarm of officials on Instagram

"He was wearing a uniform, you gave him a smile when he left." On the official Instagram account of the police Berlin since yesterday a woman is searched, who had asked at the subway station Hallesches Tor an official for the way. In doing so, she left a lasting impression: "You can not get out of our colleague's mind," the Instagram story says. Please get in touch with the police via direct message.

On the short message service Twitter, the contact application via the official Instagram channel is considered critical. Some people find the call to the police superfluous. A user, for example, writes that one should leave the woman alone. Another user finds the use of the police in this case "scary".

She asked for the way and was homely! No reason to make such a wave here from an official police account. Leave the poor woman alone @polizeiberlin! https://t.co/SE3kP43y15

How creepy it is when the official police account of @polizeiberlin looks for a woman into which a colleague has "fallen in love" https://t.co/8PmMSpMSiw

I can understand that you want to demonstrate "close to the citizen" and such on your social media accounts, that's nice of you, but could you behave a bit more like ... the police?

Others are already discussing what it could mean if the police - who also have access to sensitive citizen data - use their resources for private purposes. One user reported a meeting with a police officer whom she had met on the dating portal Tinder and who had searched for information about her in the police data system.

For me, a police officer with whom I had tethered to tinder, told me quite happily that I have never come into conflict with the police, he would have found nothing in the system. And was amazed that I made him a pig for it.

If even the Twitter team of the police helps the "dear colleague" so that everyone knows who knows what other officials are secretly doing to "help"? Take quick pictures of Übw cameras? Radio cells query?

The Berlin police, however, is behind their search. "We deliberately decided to publish our colleague's request," says Jörn Iffländer from the police social media team. On the other hand, it is constantly happening that citizens will turn to the public relations department to locate police officers who happened to meet them, and of whom they would only know the back number or rank. Even in such cases, the officials would help. "We also see it as our task to mediate here," says Iffländer.

Only if the persons concerned agree, contact will be established. It was the first time the social media had been used to support an official's search.

The accusation that the police could make use of their access to sensitive data called Iffländer "absolute nonsense". "We serve the channels of public relations, no other means." The suggestion that it was stalking was in fact wrong. "If someone answers - beautiful, otherwise the story disappeared within 24 hours."

On Instagram itself, the police get a lot of encouragement for the search, says Iffländer, and also many comments. Whether or not the wanted woman was among them could not yet be verified.