Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-10
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Jim O'Callaghan (FF), Dublin Bay South

I thank both Senators for their contributions. When it comes to the application of this legislation, if it is enacted, or its interpretation by a court, both circumstances will require a court or a garda applying it to consider the definitions contained within this legislation. The court and the garda will not be going to a definition of “biometric analysis” or “biometric identification” in the AI Act. For the purpose of this legislation, it is the definition of “biometric analysis” set out here.
The part of the legislation we are discussing here is called the carrying out of biometric analysis by members of the Garda Síochána. What is clear from a plain reading of this legislation, if enacted, is that it establishes a distinction between "biometric analysis" and "biometric identification". Irrespective of what the AI Act says, here we are establishing a distinction between the two and only biometric analysis is permitted in this legislation.
The real difference between biometric analysis and biometric identification is that biometric identification requires the assistance of a database of images. That is not needed for biometric analysis. To go back to the example I gave earlier, biometric analysis arises when a garda is looking, for example, at an incident in the city centre and he sees an image of a person who he does not know and who was involved in the commission of a serious assault or other offence. The garda will then be able to use biometric analysis to determine whether that person is the same as the person who got off a bus in Rathmines 45 minutes later. The Garda will still not know the identity of the person. This is what biometric analysis is. It is about seeing whether one image of a person is the same as another image of a person elsewhere.
It is no doubt the case that if a garda sees the person, it is the case that they are the same person and it is possible to identify that the person getting off the bus goes into a house, that will lead the Garda and the investigations to the house. Ultimately, it will be possible to identify the individual. This is, however, completely different to the process of biometric identification, where, to use the example I gave, a garda is looking at an image, sees a face, checks that face against a database and the database comes up with the name of whoever the individual is. That is what biometric identification is in this legislation. It is not covered by this legislation, but the former example I gave of biometric analysis is covered by the legislation.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:02+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-10