Ms Liz Carolan:

I thank the joint committee for the invitation to speak to it today. It has been great to see cross-party consensus on the necessity of the Bill. Making sure our elections run well is essential for our democratic health. Protecting the integrity of our elections is more than a question of democratic health; it is a national security issue. Recent international experience shows that complacency in this regard can have long-term damaging ramifications.

In Ireland, our democratic processes are respected, although sometimes it feels as if this is in spite of rather than because of our fragmented and outdated electoral management system. I believe the committee agrees with me on that point and it is an issue the Bill aims to address.

The world has changed since the Electoral Acts were written. Online political advertisements are a major innovation that has exposed loopholes in our rules. In producing the Bill, Ireland is one of the few countries in Europe that have progressed lawmaking on political advertisements. Taken in isolation, the provisions on advertisements are good. There are legally binding obligations on platforms for transparency, a ban on the overseas purchase of political ads, which was a major loophole, and detailed requirements for imprints on individual ads. From my experience and having consulted experts, the provisions could be strengthened, particularly if they were to require publication of advertisements to an archive as they happen in real time, a requirement that is missing from the proposed Bill, if transparency provisions were extended beyond the electoral period, and if the issue with the definition of "political purposes", as raised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, and the Coalition for Civil Society Freedom, were addressed. While it is acknowledged in a footnote on page 7 that there is an issue with the current definition, it is maintained in the Bill.

Social media advertisements are just one product and there is a risk that we will build legislation and an institution around a single product. We have come to be concerned about online political advertising since the 2016 US presidential election and the UK Brexit vote because they now constitute a threat to the integrity of elections and represent an evolution in campaigning. The use of technology in campaigning and attempts to undermine elections have evolved further since then. There is a strong possibility that the Bill, as drafted, could be out of date by the time it reaches the Statute Book.

The most recent general election in Ireland saw the growth of digital campaigning. Dr. Niamh Kirk in Dublin City University, DCU, did some great work on this. The next general election is likely to see further reliance on online campaigning, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. We could also see the adoption of new uses of campaign technology seen in recent elections elsewhere, including influencer advertising, which was a major source of spending in the US, the use of attack videos, so-called AstroTurf campaigns, super PAC-style online campaigns and, most worryingly, the manipulation of online discussion to suppress voter engagement. We may also see issues emerge around the equal playing field, which is a value that is already implicit in our electoral laws, with online advertising markets set up in such a way that wealthier campaigns can drive up advertising costs and price out competition. None of these issues is anticipated in the general scheme. It is impossible to draft legislation that can account for each of these and continue to do so as new technologies emerge and can be manipulated and misused.

On threats to democracy, an example of where online advertisements contributed to threats to democracy was international interference campaigns over social media platforms, enabling spending of money from outside the country to directly target voters. We saw this in Ireland during the 2018 referendum. In the past, these campaigns outside Ireland focused as much on voter suppression and engendering mistrust in institutions as they did on supporting or denigrating particular candidates.

The Bill prohibits the purchase of advertisements on social media platforms from outside the State and creates an offence if platforms fail to implement proper due diligence. This is a really strong provision which fixes a current loophole. However, we know that information and interference operations are broader than paid political advertisements. This was evident last week when the US report on attempted interference in its most recent elections was published. These operations are continually evolving to exploit new technology, such as messaging apps, fake profiles, viral unpaid content and so on. It is also clear internationally that interference operations begin long before the official election period. The Bill, as drafted, would not allow the Electoral Commission to assess the technology and act to address these and other evolving threats. It does not mandate for transparency in political activity outside the narrowly defined periods. This is a missed opportunity to address the lack of a statutory body in Ireland with responsibility for ensuring that Irish elections and referendums are free from international interference and predicting threats to electoral integrity. We may feel that Ireland has room for complacency in this regard but the prospect of another EU referendum or, indeed, a border poll should worry us, especially in relation to maintaining voter trust in the process and outcome.

As we establish our electoral commission, we should build an institution that is empowered to adapt as campaigning and threats to democracy evolve. This is in line with the ambitions for the Bill set out by the Minister on its publication and before this committee. However, the Bill, as drafted, is not quite there yet and would not create the institution that we need. I agree with experts who have already been before the committee, Professor David Farrell, Dr. Jane Suiter and Dr. Theresa Reidy, who said the Bill is a static design for an ever-evolving dynamic environment. Achieving this ambition will take innovative thinking with regard to the structure of and accountability for the new electoral commission. There are some precedents for this in other fields such as environmental and health protection, for example, the precautionary principle. Rather than set out in great detail how we might regulate some parts of campaign technology such as online advertisements, it is worth exploring whether the legislation could instead enforce standards and principles governing our elections and allow for the creation of an institution that is empowered to assess and create rules around transparency and also enforce transparency on new products and tactics as they emerge.

Witnesses at previous hearings mentioned the importance of ensuring in the legislation that the body is sufficiently funded, equipped with a research function and has funding to support independent research capable of assessing risks.

It would be positive if we could broaden the scope from just thinking about voter engagement to include actively monitoring and tackling any voter suppression operations, which we know the Internet is particularly suited to.