Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

As a Kildare Deputy I too would say that the ratio of gardaí to population has to match up. I have been complaining about that for many years. A policing service cannot be run without gardaí and counties Kildare and Meath are complete outliers in the ratio of gardaí to population. It is not enough to tell us it is an operational issue; there has to be a fairness on this.

I am not alone in having concerns about parts of this Bill and how the Minister for Justice has chosen to progress the Bill through the House. We are being presented with an incomplete Bill and the items not included in the Bill are the most important ones, namely the details about: how we use the powers included in the Bill; how they will operate; CCTV systems; body cameras; and automatic number plate recognition. We have no detail about how, when and why they will be used. We also have no detail about the level of oversight or data protection there will be, and those matters are all critically important.

The Minister without Portfolio, Deputy McEntee, has given us warning since last June that she intended to bring forward an amendment on Committee Stage on facial recognition technology. Here we are eight months later and the plan is still to introduce a new and controversial power to the Garda on Committee Stage of the Bill. Does the Department not have the details of that ready yet? Eight months is quite a long time and here we are on Second Stage with critical information absent. As the Minister knows, Second Stage is the Stage when we talk about the principle of the legislation. It is difficult to talk about the principle of the legislation when there are big holes in it but that is what is happening. Facial recognition technology is not a tried and trusted method; it is highly disputed in its accuracy and in the ethics of its use. A significant bloc of the European Parliament, as has been said, wants to see it banned outright, and the European legislation governing its use will likely be finalised this year. From the latest reports I have read, Germany is looking to support an EU-wide ban on its use of real-time facial recognition, which is a measure the Department has indicated will be included in its amendments.

I do not know what will be in the amendments, I am not on the Joint Committee on Justice and the Social Democrats does not have anybody on the committee but I am concerned that we do not have that information at this stage. We have no idea when this technology is proposed to be used and what the safeguards around it are. We do not have any information on that so why are we here with this legislation? We are being asked to legislate for something we know we might have to overturn and amend in a matter of months. Why, given the debate going on in Europe on facial recognition, are we expected to rubber-stamp its use in Ireland without proper oversight and debate?

The Joint Committee on Justice, which obviously has a Government majority, has stated that facial recognition technology should not be legalised. The Data Protection Commission has major concerns and has not been formally consulted. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ICCL, Amnesty, the Immigrant Council, Pavee Point, Digital Rights Ireland and Irish Network Against Racism - I could go on - have all expressed significant concerns about and, in some cases, outright opposition to the introduction of facial recognition technology. It is unacceptable to railroad through a power on Committee Stage without the Bill going through pre-legislative scrutiny, a Second Stage debate or any kind of consultation with the bodies that oversee civil liberties and digital rights. It is an insult to the people of this country and Members of this House to give such little consideration to civil liberties.

I am all in favour of using technology if it is appropriate and proportionate and there are proper safeguards in place. We are dealing with legislation and we have to think not only about what can go right but also what can go wrong. People will come back to this is something goes wrong so it is essential we give this proposal the scrutiny it deserves.

The use of the kinds of technology proposed in this legislation, namely, facial recognition, CCTV, body cameras and automatic number plate recognition, all have the potential to infringe on individuals' rights to privacy and data protection. In the case of most of these technologies, it is essential that we understand the need for safeguards and proportionality. Both the European Convention on Human Rights and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights allow for the encroachment on the right of privacy where it is necessary and proportionate to do so but there needs to be a test of proportionality. There are 14 references to tests of necessity and proportionality in this Bill and not once does it detail what criteria would need to be met for those tests. There needs to be an assessment of what safeguards should accompany a surveillance measure before, during and after its authorisation. We do not have that. Operational matters are largely under the control of the Garda Commissioner but those safeguards could be the difference between an infringement on people's privacy rights and a reasonable tool for gardaí to have for their own protection. It is a matter of getting the balance right and we do not have sufficient information to do so. I could not be more critical of that particular aspect of how we are progressing the legislation. If there are correct safeguards in place, we could end up with something very good. If those safeguards fall short or if they are only at operational level and have not been predefined, we could run into serious problems.

The protection of human rights and digital rights is not an operational matter for the Garda; it is a responsibility of the Oireachtas and the relevant watchdogs. These codes of practice must be given to the Joint Committee on Justice to oversee before they are adopted. One of the most obvious questions that would need to be answered in relation to body cameras is who will turn them on and off and what are the circumstances around that? These are fairly simply questions but we do not know the answers. There is experience of this elsewhere. I am not saying our police force is anything like the many police forces in the United States, and I do not want to draw many comparisons, but a key issue encountered was the ability of some police forces to simply turn off cameras when they wanted to. We cannot have that kind of scenario. We have to be specific about this.

While the intent behind the body cameras under this legislation is largely due to concerns about the safety of the police, it is a two-way system. If gardaí want civilians to be surveilled in their interactions with the Garda, gardaí have to be surveilled in their interactions with civilians too. It is a two-way issue.

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