Dr. Daragh Murray:

I thank an Cathaoirleach and I thank the Deputy for his questions. I will try to answer the Deputy’s second and third question. The second question was about the custody image database. I believe the Deputy hit the nail on the head with regard to the risks with that. The European Court of Human Rights in a different case referred to the idea of the risk of stigmatisation. Essentially, the problem is that one has a database of people who have been brought into contact with the police for whatever reason, have not necessarily been convicted of a crime and who are then treated as suspicious, in and of themselves, and are differentiated from the rest of the population. That is a very big problem with a rule of law and an equality society.

The second question the Deputy raised about the passport database highlights the problem about the lack of effective supervisory legislation in the sense that there are no strict limits on what databases can be used for. A way of resolving that in this legislation is to be very explicit about not only the databases which one can use but also the types of searches which one can do on those databases and on what basis or to what purpose can facial recognition be put. Being explicit is very much the answer.