Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-23 ============================================================ Alice-Mary Higgins (IND), National University of Ireland The Minister stated on Committee Stage that we had opted into the policing sections of the AI Act. However, it is difficult to see how that is going to work given legislation before us because the safeguards in the AI Act are detailed and extensive. Our amendments have consistently sought to better align this Bill with the protections and practices in the AI Act. Again, if we opt in to Article 26.10 we should be mindful of what that contains. It states: In the framework of an investigation for the targeted search of a person ... convicted of ... a criminal offence, the deployer of a high-risk AI system for post-remote biometric identification shall request an authorisation ... without undue delay and no later than 48 hours, by a judicial authority or an administrative authority whose decision is binding and subject to judicial review, for the use of that system. This is an example of the nuance in the actual AI Act. If there are times when you have to engage in biometric identification at short notice, you have to move forward in identification of a person where there is clear risk but you make sure that within 48 hours, you get appropriate judicial approval. It recognises the urgency and the accountability. That is the balancing act and that is the piece missing from this legislation. The system outlined in the Bill allows for the results of biometric analysis to be used subject simply to approval from a second garda. If you have a garda and then you have any other garda, you are ready to go. It does not require senior gardaí or higher authorities. It does not require, either before the fact or after the fact, appropriate judicial permissions to be given. It is simply a second garda. Considering that the AI Act calls for judicial approval normally before a biometric identification system is used, or post facto in certain circumstances, this is a wildly out-of-step approach being proposed here. Our amendment would ensure that the results of biometric analysis would not be used without the court approval in instances relating to the investigations of offence. It would allow for the expedited use of biometric analysis in the case of searches for missing persons. We identify, as the Minister has, that those are issues where time is of the essence. It suggests there may be differing procedural protocols with regard to those uses. Article 26.10 of the AI Act goes on to state that, "If the authorisation requested pursuant to the first subparagraph is rejected, the use of the post-remote biometric identification system linked to that ... authorisation shall be stopped" and the personal data would then be deleted. There are other obligations in Articles 26 and 27 that are just not present in this Bill. It is again notable from the code of conduct that Article 26.10 states "Each use shall be limited to what is strictly necessary for the investigation of a specific criminal offence." It goes on to state that "In no case shall such high-risk AI system [again, these are categorised as high-risk AI systems] for post-remote biometric identification be used for law enforcement purposes in an untargeted way". It should ensure, "that no decision that produces an adverse legal effect on a person may be taken by the law enforcement authorities based solely on the output of such post-remote biometric identification systems". Article 26.8 also suggests that public authorities using high-risk AI systems will comply with registration obligations under Article 49 and only use systems that are registered within an EU database. Perhaps the Minister will clarify if the systems the Garda will be using will be registered on the database referenced in Article 71 of the EU AI Act. Or does the novel term "biometric analysis" mean that we will not be registering under that either? On Committee Stage we talked about the second pair of eyes, and sadly there was strong rejection of amendments others had put forward to ensure the misuse would have particular offences attached to it. With absolute respect to the Minister, simply having the four eyes of two gardaí of any level on this and signing off on the use of a high-risk AI system without proper previous or after-the-fact systems in place comprised of the safeguards sought elsewhere is a serious concern. He might also answer the question about Article 71. Given that it will be his last opportunity to reply at this point, he may wish to address the issue of why he is only including databases of named individuals as biometric identification, when the AI Act is clear that it is biometric information. Why is the Minister introducing an extra hurdle for biometric identification to take place, and that it is only taking place when it is compared with a database of named individuals, given that names are not biometric? It will be his last opportunity to address that question if he wishes to. --- 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/2026-06-23/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:05+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-23