{"id":62520,"date":"2025-09-13T23:05:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T23:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/62520\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T23:05:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T23:05:13","slug":"how-gardai-plan-to-use-ai-in-major-crime-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/62520\/","title":{"rendered":"How garda\u00ed plan to use AI in major crime investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"

The scenes of unhinged violence and looting on Dublin\u2019s O\u2019Connell St less than two years ago are still fresh in people\u2019s memories.<\/p>\n

The task of identifying those involved in the rioting and criminality on November 23, 2023, has proved to be a colossal undertaking \u2014 one largely done manually.<\/p>\n

The following February, then garda commissioner Drew Harris told the Oireachtas justice committee that digital footage from that night ran to 22,000 hours, the equivalent of 916 days.<\/p>\n

He said the investigation had a \u201cviewing team of eight people\u201d who have been working round the clock since the riot.<\/p>\n

He said that this manual processing was \u201cunfeasible and ineffective\u201d, adding that AI technology would speed up this process.<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said there were people on the night of the riot that had masks over their faces, but were wearing \u201cdistinctive clothing or have distinctive characteristics\u201d.<\/p>\n

AI filter<\/p>\n

He said garda\u00ed sought digital methods to \u201cpursue them, tag them in effect, and follow their movements until we have an image that identifies them\u201d.<\/p>\n

For example, if the person concerned had a red jacket, a baseball hat, or was carrying a distinctive bag, the AI software could rapidly go through all the imagery and follow the person until they took their mask off.<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\u201cWe are doing that manually but, if we were able to apply software to look for specific characteristics of a person\u2019s clothing or whatever it might be, it would speed up the process,\u201d said Mr Harris.<\/p>\n

The offences could range far beyond taking part in a riot to assault, a sexual attack, a shooting, murder, or child abduction.<\/p>\n

Also at the committee, then garda chief information officer Andrew O\u2019Sullivan said: \u201cWhat we are primarily talking about is the use of the technology to filter, cluster, or sift evidence, and to boil it down to a series of suggested cases at which the examiner would look.<\/p>\n

\n It does not make definitive identifications\n <\/p>\n

Now, garda\u00ed have even more digital footage at their disposal that they could use from individual garda body worn cameras, currently completing a pilot stage and set for national rollout.<\/p>\n

Facial recognition<\/p>\n

Committee members expressed concern at the processing of images of innocent people<\/a> or of the wrong person being identified.<\/p>\n

This points to the heart of concerns around, and objections to, the technology \u2014 which the Government is in the process of legislating for this year \u2014 particularly AI that involves facial recognition technology (FRT).<\/p>\n

The Government initially plans for \u201cretrospective\u201d use, for crimes that have happened, with subsequent proposals for AI \u2014 including FRT \u2014 in \u201clive\u201d situations.<\/p>\n

FRT is a tool used in many countries such as Britain, Canada, the US, Russia, and China.<\/p>\n

Global police organisation Interpol uses FRT, which it says has helped identify \u201cseveral thousand\u201d individuals \u2014 including terrorists, criminals, fugitives, persons of interest, and missing persons.<\/p>\n

FRT analyses patterns, shapes, and proportions of facial features, and it contours and tries to match those against facial images in a reference database. Interpol says good quality images are \u201ccrucial\u201d.<\/p>\n

Invaluable tool<\/p>\n

Europol, the EU police agency, says FRT has become an \u201cinvaluable tool\u201d for law enforcement agencies. It swiftly identifies suspects by comparing facial data collected during investigations, and compares it against criminal databases.<\/p>\n

It said it also plays a \u201ccrucial role\u201d in locating missing persons and children.<\/p>\n

Europol notes concerns of \u201cbias\u201d with the technology, saying some studies indicated discrepancies in the system\u2019s efficiency \u2014 particularly in identifying people from \u201cspecific ethnic backgrounds, genders, or age groups\u201d.<\/p>\n

FRT is a legally and technically complex area, and it is opposed by civil rights and digital rights groups and many academics both here and abroad.<\/p>\n

At the committee, Mr O\u2019Sullivan dismissed fears of mass surveillance: \u201cIt is not a question of a blanket identification of everybody on the street. It is only those individuals that we can identify for specific incidents, where we suspect they have committed a serious crime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said once AI technology went through all the footage and got to a point where the software could suggest clear images of a suspect, garda\u00ed would try to identify the person \u201cthrough normal policing methods\u201d, by consulting divisional and regional colleagues, \u201cbefore we would consider other steps\u201d.<\/p>\n

FRT requires a database of images to compare against. Mr O\u2019Sullivan told the committee that, as it stood, \u201cwe do not have a reference database\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Observers expect that to be dealt with under the amending legislation.<\/p>\n

Both Mr Harris and Mr O\u2019Sullivan pointed out that biometric technology was currently being used in processing child sex abuse imagery, by sifting and clustering large numbers of images, although not using FRT.<\/p>\n

However, FRT could be of huge benefit in this area in terms of speed and limiting the mental and emotional damage on police viewing the material.<\/p>\n

A November 2022 study by the Australian Institute of Criminology said the \u201cproliferation\u201d of child sex abuse imagery video files highlighted a \u201cgrowing need\u201d for technology to analyse videos.<\/p>\n

It said manual processing not only compounds \u201cunmanageable workloads and burnout\u201d, it results in \u201csignificant psychological harms\u201d and secondary traumatic stress disorder as well as \u201cintrusive thoughts\u201d and interpersonal and marital problems.<\/p>\n

It said face and voice AI technology can automatically group victims and\/or offenders by face and\/or voice matches that would be very difficult, \u201cif not impossible\u201d, to accomplish manually and \u201cdramatically reduce\u201d workloads and strain.<\/p>\n

Mr Harris told the committee that seized digital devices can have over 1m child sex abuse imagery, adding that viewing this material can have a \u201ctraumatic impact\u201d on garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n

Live FRT<\/p>\n

Europol said live FRT (LFR) involves real-time reading of all people passing an FRT camera, which can be compared to a closed \u201cwatch-list\u201d of persons of interest \u2014 whether criminals, terrorists or missing persons.<\/p>\n

It said live FRT \u201cposes significant challenges\u201d from a technical and a human perspective such as system load, human capacity, and biases.<\/p>\n

\u201cPolice forces in the UK and in some EU countries have trialled LFR applications with varying degrees of success,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n

Live FRT has been in use in England and Wales for years, and Scottish police are about to start.<\/p>\n

Last July, Scottish police said they envisaged it in three scenarios: Policing the night-time economy, where \u201cthe risk of sexual offending or violence\u201d was high; searching for vulnerable or missing people; security for indoor events, which could be targets for terrorism; and monitoring offenders subject to restrictions, such as registered sex offenders.<\/p>\n

Scottish rights groups oppose the development and have called on Police Scotland to \u201cimmediately abandon\u201d the plans.<\/p>\n

It cites tests on the use of FRT by London\u2019s Met and South Wales Police, which it says identified disproportionately higher inaccuracy rates when attempting to identify people of colour and women.<\/p>\n

Last July, London Met said it planned to more than double its use of live FRT.<\/p>\n

A recent investigation by The Guardian and UK right group Liberty said internal police documents showed that 4.7m faces were scanned in live FRT in 2024 in England and Wales, twice as many as in 2023. They also found there were more than 250,000 retrospective facial recognition searches in 2024, compared to almost 139,000 the year before.<\/p>\n

The legal basis of the British system is different to what is intended in Ireland, in that its use of FRT is still not set out in law.<\/p>\n

Proposals by our Government have stressed that AI and FRT technology would not be for \u201cindiscriminate surveillance\u201d, and its use would be clearly defined in law. It says prior approval would to be sought, adding that there would be judicial oversight.<\/p>\n

Analysis<\/p>\n

A detailed analysis of Government policies and legislation, EU laws, as well as legal and human rights concerns can be found in a recent publication by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service\u2019s Karen McLaughlin.<\/p>\n

Government plans were deferred until December 2023, when the general scheme of the Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2023 was published. That led to the pre-legislative scrutiny the commissioner took part in the following February.<\/p>\n

The schedule of offences AI and FRT technology could be used include: False imprisonment; sexual offences and child abuse imagery; homicide; public order (assault and obstruction of a garda); arson and criminal damage with intent to endanger life and drug supply.<\/p>\n

The programme for government committed to FRT for serious crimes and missing persons, along with the introduction of live FRT in cases of terrorism, national security, and missing persons.<\/p>\n

Ms McLaughlin said this was the \u201cfirst time\u201d the Government had indicated plans for live FRT.<\/p>\n

Asked for an update, the Department of Justice told the Irish Examiner: \u201cDrafting of the Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill is currently ongoing. It is intended to publish this bill during the coming D\u00e1il term.<\/p>\n

\u201cA second amending bill is also proposed to allow garda\u00ed to compare an image of a person who is reasonably suspected of being involved in the commission of a serious crime against certain sources of images that An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na is legally entitled to capture and retain.<\/p>\n

\n This bill will transpose the \u2018Prum II Regulation\u2019, and will permit the use of live facial recognition in certain limited circumstances. It is expected that the scheme of this bill will be published during 2026\n <\/p>\n

The EU Prum II directive came into force in March 2024, and requires participating countries to establish a national database of facial images that can be shared through the system.<\/p>\n

Ms McLaughin said: \u201cAlthough there was no provision in the general scheme for the establishment of a national database of facial images, it is evident that Ireland will be obliged to set up such a database under Prum II.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said that, given developments in law and policy, the full bill is likely to be \u201cquite different\u201d than the general scheme. There could be some time yet before AI is part of the garda arsenal.<\/p>\n

A technology that spotted a sex offender, but misidentified a man<\/p>\n

Last January, David Cheneler, aged 73, picked up a six-year-old girl from school in London as a favour for her mother.<\/p>\n

He had done so twice before after building up a relationship with them both over the course of a year.<\/p>\n

However, unknown to the girl\u2019s mum, Cheneler was a registered sex offender.<\/p>\n

Under the conditions of his court order, he was prohibited from being alone with a child under the age of 14.<\/p>\n

Cheneler happened to pass a live facial recognition (LFR) camera, which captures faces of people walking by and compares them against a database of people on a watchlist.<\/p>\n

This includes offenders who have conditions they must adhere to.<\/p>\n

Once a match is detected, the system generates an alert which, in this case, was reviewed by an officer. They moved to intervene. They found Cheneler and the girl.<\/p>\n

The Met\u2019s lead on LFR said that, without the technology, Cheneler could have had the opportunity to cause further harm.<\/p>\n

The following month, Shaun Thompson was outside the London Bridge tube station when police exited a van and told him he was a \u201cwanted man\u201d.<\/p>\n

Perplexed, he asked what he was wanted for. He said the police responded: \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re here to find out.\u201d Mr Thompson, aged 39 and black, said the officers asked could they take his fingerprints, but he refused.<\/p>\n

He said they held him for up to 30 minutes, and he was only let go when he showed them a photo on his passport.<\/p>\n

Mr Thompson had just finished a shift in Croydon with community group Street Fathers, which aims to protect young people from knife crime.<\/p>\n

He is now bringing a legal challenge based on live facial recognition technology wrongly identifying him as a suspect.<\/p>\n

Rights group Big Brother is taking the court challenge with Mr Thompson, saying it is the first time a misidentification case has come before the High Court.<\/p>\n

Mr Thompson described the technology as \u201cstop-and-search on steroids\u201d, and said his experience of being stopped and searched had been \u201cintimidating\u201d and \u201caggressive\u201d.<\/p>\n

The London Met Police said it could not comment as proceedings were ongoing, but said its use of LFR was lawful. It said that LFR had led to 457 arrests, with seven false alerts, so far in 2025.<\/p>\n

Facial recognition technology ‘intrusive’ and ‘dangerous’<\/p>\n

Facial recognition technology is an \u201cintrusive, unreliable, and dangerous\u201d form of surveillance, according to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.<\/p>\n

In a statement to the Irish Examiner, the rights body said risks include the misidentification<\/a> of individuals as suspects of crime.<\/p>\n

It also said there is \u201cinherent biases\u201d in the data sets used to train FRT algorithms, which meant that women and ethnic minorities are at a \u201csignificantly higher risk\u201d of being wrongly identified.<\/p>\n

It has called on Garda HQ and the Department of Justice to \u201curgently clarify\u201d what facial image reference databases will be used, along with addressing accuracy and discriminatory concerns of FRT.<\/p>\n

The council is concerned by the possibility of garda\u00ed using FRT to monitor people attending a protest or public assembly. It said this would have a \u201cchilling effect\u201d on citizens taking part in protests.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Darragh Murray, a senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London, penned an academic article for The Modern Law Review which examined FRT from a \u201chuman rights law perspective\u201d in 2023.<\/p>\n

He also highlighted this chilling effect, which would give rise to \u201ccompound human rights harms\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said this would affect the \u201crights of privacy, expression, and assembly\u201d, but also interfere with \u201cthe societal processes by which individuals develop their identity and engage politically\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council told the Government in June 2024 that, while FRT had the potential to speed up investigations and the apprehension of offenders and finding missing persons, these benefits \u201cmust be balanced\u201d against the impact on rights.<\/p>\n

It urged that \u201csatisfactory independent evaluations\u201d be conducted before deploying FRT.<\/p>\n

It said FRT must comply with the EU AI Act, including a fundamental rights impact assessment before procurement. There must also be a complaints procedure as well as periodic independent auditing.<\/p>\n

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission said it considered FRT \u201ca serious interference with individual rights\u201d. However, it added that it recognised a need for An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na to \u201ctransform its digital technologies\u201d in order to support a modern police service.<\/p>\n

It said respect for human rights is an essential part of democracy and the rule of law, adding that \u201can appropriate balance must be struck between competing rights\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The scenes of unhinged violence and looting on Dublin\u2019s O\u2019Connell St less than two years ago are still…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62521,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[261],"tags":[291,289,3498,290,18,11167,19,17,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-62520","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence-ai","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-gardai","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-technology"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62520\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}