MINISTER FOR JUSTICE Helen McEntee has received Cabinet approval to publish the draft legislation for garda use of facial recognition technology (FRT).

The legislation will allow An Garda Síochána to use biometric identification to retrospectively search CCTV in some circumstances. 

While the draft legislation has been approved, it will now need to go through pre-legislative scrutiny before being finalised, which means it could be next year at the earliest before it comes into effect.

Following the Dublin riots on 23 November, McEntee secured Cabinet approval for the offences of riot and violent disorder to be included in the proposed scope of the FRT. 

However, it’s understood it will not be in effect for it to be used in the investigation into the riot. 

Garda sources The Journal spoke to said that FRT would be a game changer for their investigations and quicken the pace of hugely complex investigations. 

In addition to asking the Oireachtas Justice Committee to carry out pre-legislative scrutiny, McEntee will now ask the Committee the consider an additional list of serious offences for possible inclusion in the schedule of offences in the bill. 

Bodycams

The introduction of FRT is part of a broader plan by McEntee to equip gardaí with state of the art digital technology in the fight against crime and criminality.

The Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Act 2023 was signed into law on 5 December. 

The Act will allow An Garda Síochána to roll out bodycams from next spring, starting in Dublin city centre. 

The draft FRT Bill will amend the Act in order to give effect to the Government decision to provide that biometric identification may be used by gardaí. 

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, it isn’t possible for An Garda Síochána to process biometric data without a clear statutory basis.

The power to use FRT needs to be explicitly provided for and is set out in this General Scheme.

Trawl

At present, gardaí must trawl through hundreds of hours of footage in murder investigations to track the movements of suspects and their accomplices.

To gather the footage, gardaí compile a list of CCTV camera locations across the streets and roadways they believe are connected to a crime they are investigating. They then harvest that footage to examine it.

The garda investigators – often members of the force moved from other duties – sit in a CCTV room watching through the footage and identifying when and where they see the potential suspects. The process can often takes months, depending on the crime. 

At the conclusion of that process, gardaí will also issue stills from the footage to other gardaí to give so-called “nominations” or identities of criminals that they recognise. 

Such identifications in the past have, at best, successfully secured prosecutions or, at least, formed part of the evidence.  

Sources have said that the FRT will allow that the harvesting of the footage will still be carried out but the task of watching the videos will be taken over to a greater degree by the system’s Artificial Intelligence capabilities. 

The footage will still need to be examined after the identification but the scope of that examination will be shortened. There will also be a need for gardaí to individually identify suspects before inputting the footage.

It is understood gardaí will still have to give evidence in court to prove that there was control over the system and how they also identified the suspect. 

When it comes to incidents in large crowds, the software can be used to identify suspects and consistently track them as they move through crowded locations.

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“There has been an explosion in the use of digital data in criminal investigations, and that without adequate data analysis tools, the length of criminal investigations will increase,” McEntee said. 

Opposition

The Government has sought to reassure those opposed to the moves that there will be substantial safeguards in place to prevent abuse. The use of the technology will be monitored by a High Court judge and gardaí will only be able to use it retrospectively.

This is a similar measure which governs the use of surveillance equipment as a senior member of the judiciary also carries out an audit function in regard to that equipment.  

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) said previously it is “strongly opposed” to the technology being used by law enforcement, and said that An Garda Síochána has a “poor record on data protection”.

The ICCL previously called for a ban on the police use of facial-recognition technology, arguing that it poses an “extreme risk to rights.”

The Department of Justice said the draft Bill will provide for retrospective searching of images which are legally in the possession of An Garda Síochána, through the safe and ethical use of biometric identification in the following circumstances only:

• where a serious offence is suspected, as listed in the Schedule of the General Scheme;
• the use of biometric identification is necessary and proportionate in that specific case;
• each particular use of biometric identification is authorised in writing in advance by a Chief Superintendent and a record of that authorisation maintained.

The Government decision today has expanded this to include riot and public disorder.

The Department said such use can only be in the context of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of one or more of the criminal offences listed in the Schedule or for the protection of the security of the State.

With reporting by Niall O’Connor