GARDAÍ CREATED NEARLY 600 intelligence records on infants and toddlers under the age of three between 2015 and 2023 – and over 1,500 more on children between the ages of four and 12.

Concerns have been raised about An Garda Síochána’s practices in terms of record-keeping on children as a new report identified thousands of intelligence records kept about young children.

A report by the Garda Inspectorate has found that between January 2015 and March 2023, gardaí created 587 intelligence records on children under the age of three, 517 intelligence records of children between the ages of four and seven, and 1,100 intelligence records of children between the ages of eight and 11.

Some of the intelligence files relate to child welfare issues but many others were filed under the category of ‘family tree’ or were ‘observations’ or no category was recorded.

One of the intelligence files labelled a ten-month-old infant as being “involved in crime”.

The Garda Síochána Inspectorate is a statutory body tasked with ensuring that garda resources are used efficiently and effectively.

Questions were raised in 2013 and 2014 about garda creation of intelligence records of young children in the media, politics, and in an official inspection.

During a 2014 Crime Investigation inspection, concerns were raised by a number of people who met with the inspection team about inappropriate recording of children’s details on the gardaí’s PULSE intelligence records. The inspectorate was informed at that time that thousands of children under 12, including infants under the age of one, had a PULSE ID and associated intelligence records.

The inspection team requested information from gardaí to confirm the number of intelligence records created for children under 12 and their ethnicity. However, An Garda Síochána said that enquiries were still ongoing, that there was a large amount of work involved, and that they were not yet in a position to provide definitive figures.

The Inspectorate recommended at the time that the gardaí should conduct an urgent review of the recording of children’s details as an intelligence record on PULSE.

Seven years later, in 2021, gardaí informed the Inspectorate that they had conducted an internal review, updated the PULSE system to require approval to create an intelligence record for a child under 12, and rolled out an e-learning training programme for gardaí on creating intelligence records about children. 

The Inspectorate requested access to the findings of the internal review, leading to the report released this week.

The Times reported in 2013 that a 16-day-old baby, who was a Traveller, was assigned a criminal intelligence file because the baby was a passenger in a car being driven by his father, who had a criminal record, when it was stopped by gardaí.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties’ (ICCL) Surveillance and Human Rights Senior Policy Officer Olga Cronin has described the new findings by the Inspectorate as “deeply troubling”.

“It’s still very unclear why some children in Irish society, including infants, have been recorded on a police system. Who are these children? They, and their parents, have a right to know,” Cronin said.

“Ultimately, this is yet another unfortunate example of An Garda Síochána demonstrating a poor grasp of data protection legislation and does not augur well for Garda use of powerful technologies such as facial recognition technology,” she said.

“What’s particularly astonishing is that, ten years after red flags were first raised about this, the Garda Inspectorate has called on An Garda Síochána to audit all its intelligence records for children under 12 created since 2015. This suggests that the full scale of this issue is still unknown.

“In less than two weeks, the Inspectorate’s function and powers will be moved to a new body, the Policing and Community Safety Authority. It is essential that these recommendations, and any other oversight work that is ongoing within the Inspectorate, are not lost as part of the transition.”

The ICCL is calling for transparency from gardaí about the record-keeping, asking: “Ten years after concerns about the targeting of Traveller children were raised, why is there still no ethnicity data available on affected children? Have any of these children been harmed, or been subjected to adverse legal consequences, because of these dossiers?”

The Journal has contacted An Garda Síochána with a request for comment.