Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

To identify each device was one solution. Two solutions were put to the Minister. There is no amendment which states that each device should be identified. We have clarified that the problem is the Minister's proposal that all devices of any kind that gather data should be allowed and included under the definition of "camera". We have suggested two solutions. One is that we specify only such devices that are related to these offences and the other, which I put forward, involves specifying the particular devices. Those are two solutions we have suggested in the context of the proposal put forward by the Minister, which relates to all data.

Data gathering is a form of data processing. The Minister saying he will put in regulation as to how a person will use data that have been gathered does not reassure us as to the purposes for which data might be used. It does not give us assurances that a future Minister may not decide to add a load of other purposes for what that data that is being gathered might be used for. The Minister does not get to fish for lots of data and then decide later what purposes it may be used for. There is a question of the needless gathering of unknown amounts of data for unknown purposes by unknown devices. This is not controversial. It is probably one of the widest and loosest definitions I have ever seen.

To be clear, what we are voting on here is not a narrow definition put forward by us. It is an extraordinarily wide definition put forward by the Minister. What we have very reasonably suggested are ways that it might be made a little narrower and more effective. If it is the case that the Minister is pushing ahead then, obviously, we will just have to oppose his proposed definition. Let us again be clear what we are voting on, however, which is whether we are okay with any device that gathers any data, possible for any purpose, and that being included within the definition of "camera".