Green Party urges scrapping of fast-track plan for Garda to use facial recognition technology

The Green Party has called for contentious plans to fast-track the use of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) by An Garda Síochána to be scrapped.

Minister for Justice Simon Harris had intended to use an existing piece of legislation working its way through the Oireachtas to enable the use of the technology. But he and his predecessor, Helen McEntee, saw concerns about the plan raised at Cabinet. Members of the Oireachtas justice committee have also expressed misgivings.

The Green Party has now publicly come out against the plan in a significant intervention by one of the Coalition parties. A Green Party Government spokesman on Tuesday confirmed the party’s stance is that standalone legislation, with full scrutiny and input from experts in front of the justice committee, would be its preference.

‘Significant concerns’

While saying the party “fully supports” measures to aid the investigation of serious crimes, the spokesman added: “However, we believe the issue of facial recognition technology is far too complex to be dealt with by way of an amendment to an existing Bill. This is particularly true given that significant concerns have been raised about its use in other countries.”

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The intervention marks a setback for Mr Harris’s proposals, which he says would streamline operations for gardaí — such as reviewing CCTV footage and finding the perpetrators of child sexual abuse — and also assist the force in time-pressured situations such as when a kidnapping occurs.

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Justice committee chairman James Lawless, a Fianna Fáil TD for Kildare North, last week said he had concerns about using committee-stage amendments to the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Bill 2022 to enable the introduction of the technology. He warned that the technology had been banned in other jurisdictions.

He said a standalone piece of legislation should be introduced in order to allow for the standard process of pre-legislative scrutiny, whereby experts and stakeholders are invited to examine the legislation in public hearings.

Ask the experts

The Greens have now adopted a similar position. “If the use of FRT is to be explored, we believe it would be best to ask the Oireachtas justice committee to do so as it could invite experts to outline the various issues involved,” said the spokesman.

Last week, a spokesman for Mr Harris said the use of the technology “will greatly assist An Garda Síochána as an evidence management tool”, adding that it “has potentially transformational benefits in regard to certain specific areas of police work, in particular retrospectively examining CCTV which is already in the possession of An Garda Síochána”.

The spokesman said the “accurate and efficient” identification of suspects and the elimination of individuals from inquiries were key for the force in meeting its statutory obligations.

“The ability to automate searches on legally held images and footage would allow the organisation to operate more efficiently and effectively.”