Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Committee Stage
Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-10
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Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

It is important to say that when we talk about safety, serious crime or child sexual abuse, often it can be presented in this way that everybody does not care about that because you want to make sure that a piece of legislation is doing what it says it is doing. Everyone cares about the safety of people, about victims and about reducing victimisation. It is important to say that. When somebody analyses a piece of legislation to ensure it is good legislation, it is not to reduce that concern. We have to remember that people are sometimes misidentified by biometric data analysis. If a person's biometric analysis is being compared, this cannot be analysis unless it is being compared against other biometric analysis because then what are you comparing? A face is not compared against a name; that is not a comparison. As Senator Higgins said, a name is not biometric data. Biometric analysis has to be biometric analysis of biometric data against biometric data. They are like for like, they are a comparison - an analysis of the two that results in identification. It is not to weaken the safety or to create a sense of a lack of safety or that we do not want to ensure there is a reduction in crime or victimisation; it is to make sure that when legislation is created, it is clear and does what it is meant to do and does not disproportionately impact people in other ways. Surveillance creeps in. We can start off with the stuff that can get people emotional, and understandably so, around the protection of children or other people. That can be a response in which we create legislation. I understand the intent of that. I understand the reason people might believe this is for the protection of people.
Fair enough, the other amendment would not make sense but actually the purpose of this amendment was to understand what people's understanding of biometric information was. On Report Stage, all amendments will line up, but we are only on Committee Stage. It is helpful to have that understanding before we start defining things. To remove the item that says this is not biometric identification, does that mean if I am a barrister, which I am not, and this is probably something the Minister has considered, and I go to court with a piece of legislation that says "This is not biometric identification," and a case is being made against me that I have been identified through biometric analysis, does the law not create a scenario for me where my identification has been obtained in ways that are not actually captured in legislation? Do we end up actually risking the integrity of the cases we are speaking about today where serious crime is happening? What if someone says their biometric analysis was misused to identify them because the legislation said this is not biometric identification? Actually, I would say that making sure we are actually naming it for what it is gives strength to those situations where someone is identified through biometric identification, because we are not creating a get-out clause in the legislation that that is not what it is.
I accept that the removal of that phrase, on its own, would not be sufficient in terms of the layout of the Bill. I leave the discussion probably even more convinced than I was when I came in that "biometric analysis" is biometric identification. I will return to that in more appropriate amendments at another stage.

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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