Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 30 June 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

General Scheme of the Communications (Retention of Data) (Amendment) Bill 2022: Discussion

Mr. Justin Kelly:

Absolutely. The Chairman makes a good point in respect of the forward-facing nature of the 90-day period.

That is one of the major concerns for us in these very serious criminal investigations. In my experience of dealing with those types of investigations, the traffic and location data are often central to pointing us in the right direction and helping us to gather evidence. In many of these major investigations, we have no idea who the culprit is at the start of the investigation. The significance of a telephone number or address will not be apparent to us at the start. It will only be after some time that we identify a number that might be relevant and will lead us towards evidence. Not being able to access the data retrospectively, as the Chairman rightly pointed out, is a major concern for us.

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