The joint Oireachtas committee on justice this week published its pre-legislative scrutiny report on the general scheme of the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2023.

The committee makes a number of significant recommendations in the 158-page report, including calls for more clarity on how FRT would be used and for a “periodic, independent, judge-led review, of all use of biometric identification, based on legislatively defined operational criteria”.

An Garda Síochána and the Department of Justice should urgently clarify how FRT is intended to be used and what imagery and reference databases are intended to be used, it said.

Olga Cronin, senior policy officer at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), which gave evidence to the committee, said: “That these foundational questions remain unanswered 21 months after the minister’s plan to introduce FRT were first announced is extraordinary.

“One would think knowing those basic details would be established before any moves to legislate for intrusive and discriminatory FRT are even contemplated.

“Face surveillance technology is unreliable, biased, and the accuracy tests put forward to support this bill do not reflect how it would be used in a real-life Irish setting.

“FRT is not the silver bullet solution it’s presented to be, can enable powerful indiscriminate surveillance and, if introduced as planned, will have a profound long-term chilling effect on Irish society.”