Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank everyone for their presentations. I will make some general comments and then invite the witnesses to respond. We all want to arm gardaí with as much weaponry as possible to enable them to target and effectively prosecute those engaged in very serious crimes. We are all on the same page in that regard. I am reminded of a television miniseries that I watched recently about postmasters in the UK who were told that new technology would solve lots of problems but many of them were criminalised over a period of years. I make that point because sometimes technology can be presented to us as something that will solve a lot of problems but due diligence is not done. I have learned a bit more than I knew before I sat down today, particularly from Mr. Carroll, in terms of how this technology has advanced over recent years.

The context in which we are deliberating is that this technology was effectively banned in many parts of America, including San Francisco, Somerville, Massachusetts, Oakland, California, and Boston, Massachusetts in 2019 and 2020. There is also a list of other large population centres with their own police jurisdictions that have had difficulties with this technology and have banned it. Senator Ruane referenced the 2019 study conducted by Peter Fussey and Daragh Murray into the London Metropolitan Police, which found that 81% of suspects flagged by mass FRT were innocent. That study put the technology in the dock, so to speak. Only last June the European Parliament voted in favour of a total ban on live facial recognition in public spaces.

I understand what people have said about the traumatic experience of individual gardaí having to sift through a huge volume of very distressing material, the eating up of hours upon hours of manpower and the fact that this technology would be beneficial in that regard. However, I am also taken by accusations of gender and racial bias. I ask Mr. McGarr to expand on his contention that the law, as drafted, contravenes existing EU legislation. I ask Ms. Parau to respond to the suggestion or accusation that this technology has gender and racial bias within it and to outline how her organisation, in particular, would deal with that. I ask the Garda Commissioner or Mr. Carroll to give us some comfort as to why so many police authorities in so many places in the USA and in the UK have had difficulty with this. Is it because it is an old way of doing things? Are they wrong? Are we right? How is it that they have made that determination and yet we are expected to make a different determination in this jurisdiction?