Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-10 ============================================================ Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin I move amendment No. 3: In page 5, to delete line 33. As we know, this Bill will provide for the use of AI facial recognition systems by An Garda Síochána. I believe the Government has gone about this in a fairly interesting way, using a novel term of "biometric analysis" to define the systems gardaí will be using. However, even though the Government is using that term, the definition provided in the Bill is effectively the same as biometric identification, as described in the EU AI Act. Our amendment deletes line 33 which states that biometric analysis, the novel term which is not used elsewhere within the EU AI Act to describe the technologies that will be employed by the Garda throughout the Bill, does not include biometric identification. Even if the Government might wish for this to be the case, it is hard to see how it will be. Recital 17 of the EU AI Act is very clear. It states: The notion of ‘remote biometric identification system’... should be defined functionally, as an AI system intended for the identification of natural persons without their active involvement, typically at a distance, through the comparison of a person’s biometric data with the biometric data contained in a reference database, irrespectively of the particular technology, processes or types of biometric data used. This is a very wide-ranging definition. It is difficult to understand how biometric analysis does not include biometric identification as defined by the AI Act. Therefore, we propose to delete the lines that assert that they are not the same thing with particular regard to paragraphs (b) and (c) of the definition. The definition of "biometric analysis" in paragraph (c) seems to be clearly biometric identification. It states that biometric analysis means "the automated recognition" in relation to a particular identified individual. For what purpose would gardaí use technology other than to identify the person under this definition? As much as the Government might want to consider this as biometric analysis, inevitably identification will be happening through the use of these technologies, which puts the use of these technologies in a high-risk category under the AI Act, for which a wide range of safeguards are outlined. What impact will calling these systems by another name have for our compliance with those safeguards? Does this allow us to circumvent the protections outlined in the AI Act? Interestingly, in Recital 40 Ireland has a carve-out due to the common travel area for the purposes of law enforcement. It is not bound by the rules in Article 5 around the prohibited AI practices in Article 26.10 in relation to seeking approval from a judicial authority for the use of biometric identification in a criminal investigation. Article 26.10 contains many other safeguards regarding the use of biometric technologies. There is an important question that the Minister needs to clarify on this. While we are not bound by these safeguards, are we opting in to those safeguards and if we are not, why not? As I read it, that carve-out exists because of the common travel area and because of the Good Friday Agreement but I do not understand why and how that decision was made. The procedures described in the Bill are not comprehensive and our subsequent amendments will speak to concerns about how this technology will be implemented. If we do not opt in to the protections in the AI Act, there is a significant risk that Ireland will become an outlier in Europe where the use of these sorts of surveillance technologies can be trialled. It is a fairly chilling prospect that this country would become a testing ground for the application of biometric systems in criminal investigations and it raises serious questions about the implications of that application on the rights and liberties of citizens and the people who are living here. Another important point to be made here is that we need to be very careful in describing the use of biometric data inaccurately. We have been here before. The Department of Social Protection was fined by the Data Protection Commission last year over the use of biometric data linked to the public services card. The use of biometric data in that instance was deemed to not meet the requirements of data protection law as required by GDPR. In this Bill, by creating a novel term in "biometric analysis", which I do not understand, we are using a type of biometric analysis but it is clearly biometric identification and it seems to be trying to move around the acknowledgement of that and diverging from the terminology used in the AI Act. We are concerned that there may be issues regarding this Bill’s compliance in the future with GDPR. The European Data Protection Board has previously issued guidelines on the use of facial recognition technology in the area of law enforcement. The guidelines outlined the specific scenario examining remote processing of biometric data in public spaces for identification purposes and found that such use would constitute a disproportionate interference with the data subject's rights under Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Has the Minister considered these legal implications? The crux of it is that this Bill refers to biometric analysis, but what is clearly outlined is biometric identification. That does not align with the EU's AI Act, which clearly names it as biometric identification. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-10/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:02+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-10