ICCL concerns on garda bodycam plans
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has expressed concern about reports that An Garda Síochána is set to spend €150 million to roll out body-worn cameras (bodycams) nationwide after a pilot.
Garda Representative Association (GRA) president Niall Hodgins told Newstalk yesterday (4 June) that the move was “good news” for gardaí.
The ICCL, however, said that it was “troubling” that the final assessment report on a pilot project using the devices in Dublin, Limerick, and Waterford had not been published.
The organisation said that it understood why gardaí might want body-worn cameras, adding that it also understood the argument that they could, in certain circumstances, help to protect gardaí and assist victims of crime.
Risks
“But it’s not enough to simply say they are useful. We need to see evidence to back up claimed benefits, and we also need to consider the risks and how they are controlled,” the ICCL said in a statement.
The organisation said that it was “very difficult” to say whether a public consultation on a code of practice for using the devices, which took place earlier this year, was fully informed, without details of the evaluation criteria or methodology for the pilot, or sight of the subsequent assessment report.
”We have not yet seen the finalised code of practice, only the draft code of practice created for the pilot,” it stated.
“Meaningful consultation requires transparency about how a system performed in real-life before any decisions are made about a national roll-out,” the ICCL concluded.