Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 13 February 2024

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality

General Scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill: Discussion

Dr. David Murphy:

I will come in because it might be helpful to address a question that was also raised by Deputy Pringle. Under EU law enforcement directive, which is the overarching legislation, biometric data is any data derived from a person's physical characteristics that can uniquely identify him or her. Therefore, yes, a person's height, body shape or face or fingerprint are considered biometric data because it is data derived from his or her unique physical characteristics. In that case, therefore, we would deem that tracking somebody by his or her height or body shape would be processing biometric data.