An Garda Síochána did not consult the Data Protection Commission (DPC) before it took the unprecedented step of publishing 99 photographs of “persons of interest” as part of its investigation into the Dublin riots last year. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has expressed concern about the release of the images last month.
The Garda has established identities, subject to final confirmation, for 90 of the people featured in the images, with some Garda sources saying they were surprised the tactic proved so successful. Almost all of the names for the people in the images came from members of the public within days of the images being released at a media event.
In a statement the DPC has effectively given its approval to the Garda to release images, or so-called rogues’ galleries, of suspects in the future subject to certain conditions. It said the release of the November riot images was justified as the scale and nature of the inquiry into the riots was “major”.
The commission office added it did not believe the practice of releasing images was “a novel data processing activity” even though it had never been done before on such a large scale.
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“While the DPC was not consulted in relation to the release of these images this does not raise any particular concerns as the DPC would not expect to be consulted on the processing of personal data in relation to specific investigations,” the commission’s office said in reply to queries.
The Data Protection Commission said when the Garda is processing data to further any of its inquiries it must consider if the planned action is “proportionate in a particular investigation”.
The Garda has previously been reluctant to release images and CCTV of suspects or persons of interests and has only done so in controlled circumstances on RTÉ's Crimecall programme. The images and footage broadcast on the programme are not made available to other media outlets or published anywhere else.
Garda Headquarters’ legal advice is that gardaí must be much more conservative than police forces in the UK and other parts of Europe for fear of breaching GDPR regulations and data protection laws. This has frustrated many Garda investigators for years, though the release of the 99 images from the Dublin riots, and the DPC’s apparent approval of the move, may now lead to more releases.
The ICCL’s senior policy officer on surveillance, Olga Cronin, said a “national conversation” was required if the Garda planned to take a more liberal approach to the sharing of images. A person’s right to the presumption of innocence and a fair trial may be adversely impacted if their photograph was circulated, she said.
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