Concerns raised over plans for use of facial recognition technology by Gardaí

The Irish Council of Civil Liberties has criticised the government’s plans for the use of facial recognition by Gardaí.

The technology would be used for murder, missing persons and child sex abuse cases.

Some cabinet ministers have also expressed concern over the use of facial recognition.

Liam Herrick from The Irish Council for Civil Liberties says there has been issues around the technology in the US.

“We’ve seen difficulties with false positives. We’ve seen difficulties with the databases tending to have biases towards certain ethnic groups, for example they can distinguish between people that might be Caucasian but that they find it difficult to distinguish between people who are of a minority ethnic origin”