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

I thank the Minister for his presentation. The Labour Party is broadly supportive of the idea of body cams for gardaí. However, we want to make a few points on this Stage. I was not a member of the justice committee, although I am now, when this Bill underwent pre-legislative scrutiny. I understand there was no reference to facial recognition technology at that time. I will return to the issue of facial recognition technology shortly but, as a matter of process, it is less than desirable that on this Stage a new element of this Bill is being brought in for us to deliberate on Committee Stage, when it represents a major change in the operation and organisation of An Garda Síochána.

I will speak first to the positivity around the issue of body cams. It has been spoken about for a long time. The Government is moving on it and we are legislating for it, which is a positive. We have seen across the world, where body cams on police officers have been used, they have protected police officers, in addition to communities that previously were not believed regarding over-aggressive police forces and the interaction between police forces and their communities. The Black Lives Matter movement was emboldened because it had evidence from individual interactions between police officers and members of their communities and could prove the level of aggression that was there. Body cams will also protect members of An Garda Síochána. Even in recent days and weeks, we have seen the level of protests that are happening in some communities. Members of the public would not believe the type of vitriol and poison that is spouted and spat at members of An Garda Síochána until they see it, either live or recorded.

We rightly speak a lot about the abuse politicians and especially female politicians get. It is justifiable to speak out. Such abuse has to be rooted out and ended. There are so many public servants who get vile abuse. Female public service employees get disproportionately more vile abuse. That includes members of An Garda Síochána. We support body cams for two reasons: first, to protect the individual who comes into contact with An Garda Síochána to prove the nature of that interaction and whether the force used by a garda was appropriate and that interaction was respectful and, second, to protect the member of An Garda Síochána, again, by illustrating the type of interaction the civilian had with that officer.

However, there is a trust deficit. We all know of the case of a vulnerable woman who was recorded walking down O'Connell Street in a distressed state and that the recording was shared among members of An Garda Síochána. We know that some sensitive material that members of An Garda Síochána are privy to is not treated with the delicacy it should be. Let us put it that way. We have to be clear that whatever recorded material comes from body cams that the Garda has will be treated with a lot of regulation and safeguards and that there will be penalties involved for anybody who transgresses that. If it happened in the case of the woman I mentioned, I am quite sure it has happened previously in other cases. We cannot have a scenario where very sensitive material of interactions between gardaí and individuals in the street is shared inappropriately, goes into the public domain, ends up on a social media site, and we reap a whirlwind of regret because we did not put in the safeguards on this Stage.

This is a major change in the dynamic of the interaction between a garda and a member of the public. It is a major change. We have to now, unfortunately, think of the worst-case scenario that could possibly happen from this dynamic and interactional change, prevent that happening, and work back from that worst-case scenario to where we are now. What would we say if, in years to come, some interaction between a garda and somebody in a state of undress or intoxication, or somebody who is well known or whatever, ended up online inappropriately? Would we then say we should have thought differently about the Bill when it was brought before the Oireachtas and whether we should have trusted the Garda enough to ensure the situation I outlined would not happen? Unfortunately, we have to work in the space where in the context of the individual right of the person interacting with the Garda, and that interaction being recorded, we are dealing with citizens who have to be assumed to be innocent of any transgression. If this interaction is now to be recorded, all of us have to be assured that the recording will be treated sensitively, and that it will not be tampered with, released, or end up in the public domain.

Again, I support members of An Garda Síochána who are going about their daily work and are in confrontational situations every day. It is a difficult job. On that, it is fair to say we do not have enough gardaí. There are 650 fewer gardaí in the State now than there were three years ago. I am not suggesting this Bill is a distraction. This legislation is needed but within this conversation we have to also point to the fact that it is not a substitution for boots on the ground. The morale in An Garda Síochána has been spoken of, as have the reasons members are trying to get out, are seeking early retirement and are changing career because it is an unhappy place to work at present.

When we have 650 fewer gardaí than we had three years ago, that has to be addressed.

As for facial recognition technology, none of us want to oppose technology. It sounds great for a Minister to say, "Facial recognition technology is the way to go, the Garda Commissioner says the same thing, and who could be against that?" This is again a massive layer of change in the dynamic of how An Garda Síochána will interact with the public. Anywhere else it has been used it has proven to be problematic. There are districts in the UK where it has been shown that 80% of the cases that have used facial recognition technology have been defective. San Francisco has banned it. I understand EU legislation is being formulated to ban it in every European state. It does not make a heap of sense - this is my understanding of the EU position - for us to bring in legislation that enables An Garda Síochána to use facial recognition technology when it has proven so problematic in other jurisdictions. Meanwhile, the EU is formulating legislation to outlaw it and, therefore, we would be contradicting EU law before we start. That is notwithstanding the fact that the process in bringing it in is, we will all agree, less than perfect in that we are not having pre-legislative scrutiny, going by the Minister's contribution, and we are going to bring it into Committee Stage. Not only is facial recognition technology problematic, my colleagues in Sinn Féin have quite rightly said that it has been proven to be problematic in terms of the people it isolates and targets. There is a racial dimension to this as well, whereby it is disproportionately discriminatory against those of certain ethnic backgrounds. When the Garda Commissioner makes comments about every body cam having facial recognition technology, those are two major changes in one which we need to be careful about.

Let me put the position of the Labour Party clearly. We are in favour of body cams on gardaí. We feel they would protect the member of the public and the member of An Garda Síochána. There are major concerns as to how those data will be stored and not shared but protected and kept sacred, as it were, but we will work on that and we have to find regulations around that. On facial recognition technology, however, we are yet to be convinced that this is the right time to bring in this incredibly powerful tool on top of what the Minister is proposing when it has proven so problematic. The Minister will say that the technology can improve, that all these glitches can be overcome and that if we have the legislation, it can be amended in time. We feel that because the technology has proven to be so difficult to use effectively in other jurisdictions that have tried it, because police forces internationally are rowing back against it and because the EU, apparently, is bringing in legislation to ban it, we should not use this legislative process to bring it in. With the body cam there is enough of a change of dynamic between An Garda Síochána and the public for us to work on at this time. This seems to be a bridge too far at this point. We can toss it over and back on Committee Stage and we can bring in experts if the Chair of the committee is willing to do so to disabuse us of our difficulties with it, but there is a big difference between technology that can recognise somebody in a confrontational or criminal act and the recording of a public space where somebody is just innocently walking down the road. The usage of that technology to pursue that person is a different dynamic from the other of the two usages of facial recognition technology.

I will reiterate that we support An Garda Síochána. We believe that body cams will assist them in their work. We want to know that the material they would gather would be treated sensitively. We want to be sure that the person being recorded will know that that interaction will not end up on some website somewhere. We also want to be sure that if there is an interaction that may reflect negatively on An Garda Síochána, there will be consequences for the garda who says the body cam just was not working, he or she forgot to plug it in or it went on the blink. There will be massive trust issues in such scenarios. Will there be an expectation that gardaí do not go on the beat unless the camera is working and that they check it before they go out? I can just imagine all those scenarios. On facial recognition technology, will the Minister please investigate what is being done at EU level and what has happened in other jurisdictions before he shoehorns in a major change in the dynamic that has been proven internationally not to work? The evidence we have is that this does not work and that police forces are rowing back against it all across the world. We could bring in legislation that will be useless because it will contravene what is happening in respect of EU law.

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