The committee will carry out pre-legislative scrutiny of the general scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill over two sessions from 4pm-6pm and 6.15pm-8pm.

The general scheme of the bill, published in December, sets out plans to allow gardaí to use biometric identification to retrospectively search CCTV footage when investigating specific offences, including murder, rape, robbery and rioting.

The first session today will hear evidence from the Data Protection Commissioner, Safe Ireland, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties/Digital Rights Ireland, Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI), the Law Society and An Garda Síochána.

The second session will hear from:

• Dr Abeba Birhane, senior advisory for AI accountability at the Mozilla Foundation and adjunct assistant professor in the School of Computer Science and Statistics at Trinity College Dublin;
• Dr Daragh Murray, senior lecturer and IHSS fellow in the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London and a UKRI Future Leaders Fellow;
• Dr Nessa Lynch, Matheson lecturer in law, technology and innovation at University College Cork and a research fellow in the Faculty of Law at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand;
• Professor David Kaye of the University of California, Irvine School of Law; and
• Dr Ciara Bracken-Roche, assistant professor in Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology.

Both sessions will be streamed live on Oireachtas TV.