Plans to introduce facial recognition technology for the Garda are “not about mass surveillance”, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee has said.
Speaking at the Garda Representative Association (GRA) conference in Westport, Co Mayo, on Wednesday, the Minister defended her plans to introduce legislation permitting gardaí to use the technology when investigating serious offences.
Ms McEntee said gardaí spend thousands of hours going through CCTV footage, including in cases of murder, child sex abuse or child abduction “where time is of the essence”. She said facial recognition technology will make this job much easier.
“But I have to be very, very clear. This is not about mass surveillance. We’ll have safeguards and codes of practice in place.”
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She said the legislation, which is expected to come into force by the end of the year, will address privacy and GDPR concerns.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris said the legislation is “absolutely essential”. He said it will also be used to search for missing people, including missing children. Facial recognition will be “essential” to help gardaí search for suspects in CCTV footage, Mr Harris said before his address to the GRA conference.
He said gardaí will not have blanket powers to employ facial recognition. “We will use it where there are serious crimes to investigate or where there is a national security issue.”
Damien McCarthy, GRA representative for Dublin metropolitan region, south central division, told Newstalk’s Pat Kenny Show that such technology could speed up the process saving “thousands of hours” sifting through CCTV footage. However, Fianna Fáil TD James Lawless warned of problems with facial recognition, citing a 2019 report from the London Met that said in up to 80 per cent of cases the wrong person was identified.
“This could be a dystopian nightmare,” he told RTÉ Radio’s Today with Claire Byrne show. The situation could arise where effectively the computer would say “go arrest that person” and it would turn out to be the wrong person. A similar concern was also expressed by Elizabeth Farries, assistant professor at the UCD Centre for Digital Policy, on Newstalk Breakfast.
“From a digital policy perspective, there’s evidence that policing facial recognition tech actually makes society less safe. It doesn’t accomplish the goal that [gardaí] are seeking. It’s not accurate, it can be discriminatory — and it moves us further towards a surveillance society that is somewhat dystopian in character,” Ms Farries said. There was evidence of accuracy failure with facial tech algorithms especially against women and people of colour.
Liam Herrick of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties echoed this sentiment, saying people’s identities were likely to be reduced to being “a human licence plate”. To give the Garda “this powerful new tool” was dangerous with a risk of misuse, he said.
Mr McCarthy said that the technology would be operated to the highest professional standards, and if there was a breach of data protection it could be immediately addressed. The new technology would allow gardaí to tackle cybercrime, especially in the area of child exploitation as at present there was a three-year backlog of devices that had not yet been accessed, which meant, potentially, there were victims out there who had not yet been identified and helped. It is important that when Cabinet considers the new legislation that it will provide the resources necessary to put the new technology to the best use, he added.
The legislative basis for the technology will be introduced in the form of an amendment to the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill.
In its current form, the Bill provides for the use of body-worn cameras, automatic number-plate-recognition technology and third-party CCTV by gardaí. The Government will introduce amendments at committee stage to allow evidence collected through these means to be used with facial recognition technology.
Ms McEntee will seek Cabinet approval for the measure before bringing it forward in committee stage in autumn. The Bill is expected to be fully enacted by the end of the year.
