Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes, I wish to speak on amendments Nos. 7 to 9, inclusive. In speaking to amendment No. 8, the Bill as drafted does not include a provision that would allow a person who is interacting with a member of An Garda Síochána to ask that his or her body camera be turned on. This is a significant oversight. If we leave the Bill as is, it will mean gardaí will have absolute discretion as to when and where their cameras are turned on or off. As I have previously stated, this means body cams will not function as impartial records of crime scenes, but rather as one-sided tools of surveillance where gardaí has absolute power and the public has none. If we want body cameras to work as intended, which is to make objective recordings of crime scenes and interactions between members of An Garda Síochána and the public, it is absolutely essential that someone who is interacting with a garda can ask that his or her camera be turned on. That is the only way an impartial record can be created.

We know from the report released by the BBC in recent weeks, which I have previously highlighted to the Minister and to my colleagues in the House, that body cameras are regularly misused by police in the UK when they are using force. To remind the House, a two-year BBC investigation found that police officers in the UK were switching off their body-worn cameras when force was being used, as well as deleting footage and sharing videos on WhatsApp. Body cameras are also selectively turned on and off by police in the US in order to hide their wrongdoing. This is a proven fact now backed up by overwhelming evidence from both jurisdictions. The Bill relies entirely on codes of practice to govern the ethical use of body cams. This is precisely the same system as in the UK where a code of practice is also the primary means of regulation yet we are expected to believe that the widespread abuse in the UK will somehow not occur here in Ireland. I am frankly disappointed that, despite the enormous evidence we have presented to the Minister, there has been no engagement in respect of the issue. It is very naive for anyone to think that Irish gardaí using body cameras will simply be an exception to all the problems and abuse uncovered in the UK and the United States. I am frustrated and disappointed by the refusal to learn from the mistakes in other jurisdictions. The whole purpose of the Bill is to improve the safety of the Garda and the public, and to establish better trust between both parties. If we do not include what I consider to be basic rights-based provisions, like this one, in the Bill, we could end up further undermining the safety of trust between both parties. We previously tabled two variations of this amendment and have decided to bring only one back on Report Stage. Under this amendment, gardaí would be able to use their best judgment on whether to facilitate a request to turn their camera on. This provision would still give members of the Garda latitude to refuse this request, which takes account of some of the privacy concerns referred to by Senator Ward in the last debate. During the Committee Stage debate, the Minister advised us of her view that the rules and regulations to which gardaí will have to adhere in turning on or off their cameras ought to be set out by way of codes of practice. The argument for doing so is that the code can be made more rigorous without the need for legislative amendment. I suggest it is too important an issue to be left to the discretion of the Government of the day. This justification is not sufficient to omit the basic rights-based safeguard in this Bill. We only need to look at those examples in the UK, where the use of body cameras is not provided for in primary legislation, to know that we need to do something different. The codes of practice in the UK have proven utterly ineffective in preventing abuse, so why on earth would it be any different here? This is a very moderate amendment and I implore the Minister to accept it. We presented a huge amount of evidence to the Minister during the early stages of this Bill and the Minister has had endless opportunities to take evidence on board. This is now the last opportunity to engage. I ask that the Minister take it.

Amendment No. 12, which I think is also in this grouping, is a more moderate amendment than the one we proposed on Committee Stage. The original amendment specified the measures we believed should be taken to ensure that drones are visible to any subject and clearly identifiable as being operated by An Garda Síochána. The amendment is more general in that it merely states that reasonable measures must be taken to ensure that drones are clearly visible to the subject and clearly identifiable as being Garda operated. Without this amendment, I have grave concerns over the provisions around the use of drones in the Bill, as drafted. Sections 9 and 10 have some provisions which stipulate the use of body cameras and provide that they must be overt where possible. However, there are no specific safeguards in the Bill requiring the use of drones to be overt. This creates the potential for an alarming situation in which Garda drones could hover at such a height that they are invisible to the naked eye, while using powerful cameras to monitor civilians or situations in which Garda drones are operating at night, hidden in the darkness and invisible to civilians, while using night-vision cameras to observe them. This, I hope the Minister would agree, would be a dystopian prospect. We do not have the right, as legislators, to trample over the privacy rights of the public whenever we feel like it. There must be clear and limiting rules around the use of drones and they must be visible and identifiable to any member of the public being surveilled. When a person looks up, they can see a CCTV camera above them. Under the legislation, when a person interacts with a garda, they should be able to see the body camera clearly visible on their uniform. Why should this norm be abandoned for drones? If all other surveillance devices are only used in situations in which the public can see them, this same rule should extend to drones. The norm across all types of State surveillance is that the subject must be informed that they are being surveilled. I look forward to seeing how the Minister will ensure these norms are preserved when it comes to drones. A good first step would be to accept this amendment and ensure privacy rights are protected within the primary legislation.