13 February 2024
ICCL Senior Policy Officer Olga Cronin, along with our colleagues at Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) presented to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Justice on the Draft General Scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2023.
ICCL called on the committee to urge the Government to reconsider their proposal to introduce Facial Recognition Technology into Irish policing as we believe the risks to the fundamental human rights are too high. We make this call for several reasons, which include:
- FRT is unreliable and not the silver bullet solution it’s often presented to be.
- FRT is discriminatory.
- FRT can enable powerful mass, indiscriminate and pervasive surveillance.
- The Bill, as proposed, is, in our view, unlawful under EU law.
Our opening statement to the committee, as well as our submission outlining the risks posed to human rights by enabling Garda use of FRT, can be found below.