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THE NEWS THAT Justice Minister Helen McEntee is to expand controversial legislation for garda use of facial recognition technology (FRT) was met with disquiet from politicians and social justice campaigners.
Helen McEntee, the Minister for Justice, has told legal officials in her department to include riot and violent disorder offences in the new legislation.
Draft FRT law will be ready to be approved by Government within weeks but the legislation will 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.
There has been disagreement in recent months between Fine Gael and the Green Party over plans to legislate for FRT, with a decision made to proceed separately with the roll out of bodycams for gardaí and to introduce FRT through standalone legislation.
The discontent in Government ranks is not the only source of potential opposition with the Irish Council of Civil Liberties also complaining vociferously against the technology.
In September, gardaí announced news of their tendering process for new body-worn cameras which will be used by almost all frontline gardaí.
The cameras themselves will not have facial recognition software but it can be applied later through a specific computer program.
Government sources said that the FRT legislation will permit gardaí to use the technology in their investigations of serious crimes such as murder, rape and child abuse.
McEntee has directed officials dealing with the legislation in her department to include riot and violent disorder in the new legislation – sources have said that this is a response to the Dublin riot in November.
However, it will not be in effect for it to be used in the investigation into the riot.
Garda sources we spoke to said that FRT would be a game changer for their investigations and quicken the pace of hugely complex investigations.
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.
In investigations of child abuse images, gardaí will use the system to identify victims and perpetrators in the footage and still photography. This will help investigators to better cope with the trauma associated with watching hours of disturbing content.
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.
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.”
There has also been opposition from some academics, at an ICCL organised event, who believe it is open to abuse by police.
ICCL Executive Director Liam Herrick said that the Justice Minister had agreed to draft a separate ‘Heads of Bill’ from scratch which will have to go through pre-legislative scrutiny and all stages in Oireachtas, stating “That is still the case”.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris had sought to quell some of the concerns around FRT at an Oireachtas committee meeting.
“I refer to all the fears set out around facial recognition technology. We do not even wish to push as far as the European directive on AI. What we wish to do is retrospective investigation of serious criminality where CCTV or other images might play a part.
“Therefore, there has been a huge distortion in this. In doing so, the importance of its use in the expeditious of investigation and bringing serious offenders to justice has been lost to our detriment.
“As we sit here today, we have lost a very valuable investigative tool and I know the Government is working hard to make sure we have that as soon as possible,” he added.
Pressure is mounting on McEntee and the Garda Commissioner Drew Harris in recent days around their handling of the far right and policing in general.
It has emerged that a team of gardaí are having to trawl through 6,000 hours of CCTV to identify suspects in the riot and the subsequent looting.
Ireland is not the only jurisdiction looking to use the footage. Commissioner Mark Rowley of the Metropolitan Police has also commented on the merits of the system and said it would be as significant a development as DNA.
There has been a court decision in 2020 in the UK against the use of FRT in a case in Wales on grounds that it breached a right to privacy.
Regardless of the outcome of the legislative process there could well be a similar challenge here in Ireland – whether that comes or not will be up to how the system is operated by An Garda Síochána.
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