Dr. Ciara Bracken-Roche:

I thank the Senator for those great questions. I will give a general response because I know some of my colleagues will have more technical expertise. Many of the questions the Senator has raised are concerns we had in reading this draft amendment Bill. There is a lot of information missing as to the technology, how it will operate and what the protocols around it will be. Trying to incorporate this as an amendment to another Act when the technology is changing so quickly and when there is such a lack of clarity as to how it will operate is of concern. Where has the biometric data come from? There is discussion of biometric data but we are not sure where An Garda Síochána will access data from. On verification, head 7 of the Bill talks about the result being verified by an investigation team but at no point in the draft amendment does it say who this investigation team will be or what kind of training they will have. Who is the facial examiner? How would that operate? All of those specifics need to be brought into the conversation in order for this amendment to proceed. Legislation on this topic could bead hocbecause the technology develops so quickly and because we need to be really specific about how it operates. I will leave my comments there and pass on to Dr. Birhane.