25 May 2022
ICCL strongly opposes the use of Facial Recognition Technology (FRT) for law enforcement and in public spaces. In our submission to the Oireachtas on the Garda Digital Recordings Bill ICCL has already called for a ban on the police use of FRT. This is because of the extreme risk to rights posed by FRT. A person’s face is permanently and irrevocably linked to a person’s identity. Our position aligns with a wider European movement to ban the use of FRT by law enforcement.
We would be particularly concerned about the move to authorise FRT for An Garda Síochana given their poor record on data protection. Additionally, neither An Garda Síochána or the Department of Justice have shown any demonstration that using FRT is either necessary or proportionate – a legal requirement under human rights law.
FRT and other biometric surveillance tools enable mass surveillance and discriminatory targeted surveillance. They have the capacity to identify and track people everywhere they go, undermining the right to privacy and data protection, the right to free assembly and association, and the right to equality and non-discrimination. FRT systems are known for their inability to correctly identify faces that are not white and male, due to inherent biases. ICCL strongly opposes the use of such technology and, with over 170 civil society organisations and activists from 55 countries around the world, is calling for an outright ban on biometric surveillance in public spaces.
The Garda Digital Recordings Bill (currently going through Oireachtas) proposes to authorise Garda access to third party CCTV through a live feed. The explanatory note highlights that it is “considered that this may be necessary in relation to an increase in criminal activity in a particular area where 3rd party cameras may be located.” This is already deeply problematic as it could lead to general monitoring and profiling of certain areas or people, and amount to extended covert surveillance if An Garda Síochána fail to flag this surveillance with affected members of the public. The risk to people’s rights would multiply should these cameras include FRT.
ENDS/
Notes:
· People in the US have been wrongfully arrested because of police use of FRT erroneously matching innocent people with a person on a wanted list (INCLO report and ACLU cases).
· The European Data Protection Board and European Data Protection Supervisor previously made a joint call for a ban of certain kinds of processing in relation to (1) remote biometric identification of individuals in publicly accessible spaces, (2) AI-supported facial recognition systems categorising individuals based on their biometrics into clusters according to ethnicity, gender, as well as political or sexual orientation or other grounds for discrimination (3) use of facial recognition or similar technologies, to infer emotions of a natural person and (4) processing of personal data in a law enforcement context that would rely on a database populated by collection of personal data on a mass-scale and in an indiscriminate way, e.g. by “scraping” photographs and facial pictures accessible online.
· Own-volition, ongoing inquiries being carried out by the DPC into the surveillance of citizens by local authorities and An Garda Siochana, through the use of technologies such as CCTV, body-worn cameras, drones and other technologies such as ANPR-enabled systems, have already raised very serious concerns about AGS’s compliance with data protection laws. See here (page 63) and here.
· ICCL notes the recent statement of Dale Sutherland of the DPC who stated before the Oireachtas Justice Committee that the Garda Digital Recording in its present form provide “no legal basis for the processing of special category data in CCTV or other smart camera recording systems that support capability to profile automatically or recognise automatically and track individuals such as the use of facial recognition technology”. This means the Minister would require new legislation or significant amendments to the Bill to give effect to her stated intention. ICCL will strong oppose any such proposals.
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is Ireland’s oldest independent human rights campaigning organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign to secure human rights for everyone in Ireland.
For comment: Liam Herrick
For media queries: sinead.nolan@iccl.ie