The Irish Times reports today that a Garda Drone Unit has been created for various policing purposes:
[Drones] look set to be deployed initially to pursue offenders, including those in vehicles, and for rapid dispatch to the scenes of major emergencies to provide “eye in the sky” intelligence for gardaí.
The drones are also expected to be used during major public order incidents, including riots, to record footage for identifying and prosecuting suspects.
And they could be dispatched to the scenes of planned operations, including co-ordinated searches against organised crime gangs, to provide intelligence.
The legal basis for the use of drones is the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) Act 2023. I've written about this for the Irish Current Law Statutes Annotated - here's a short and lightly edited excerpt from that annotation on some legal issues that arise around police use of drones:
This Act provides a general basis for recording devices, very broadly defined to include any visual and sound recording devices. Recording devices in this context include hand-held devices, devices fixed to structures or vehicles (dashcams), carried by an animal, or remotely operated on an unmanned aerial vehicle (drones).
Recording devices can be used in public places and any other place where a garda has the right to be present or is present for the performance of their functions. This includes private dwellings, subject only to the additional requirement that the occupants be notified of the use of the devices.
Where a recording device is used on a drone, there is no limitation on the places where the drone may be used or may observe. For example, this would permit a drone to be flown over a private garden, or to look into a private garden, and there is no notification requirement.
Recording devices can be used for essentially any policing purpose: for the prevention, investigation, etc. of any criminal offence – not just serious or arrestable offences – as well as for public security, public safety, and public order, state security, and execution of criminal penalties. The only limitation is that the use should be “necessary and proportionate” for a particular purpose. The Act provides examples of particular uses (for example, where “the member believes on reasonable grounds that a breach of the peace or a public order offence is occurring or may have occurred”) but these are without prejudice to the generality of the provision.
The breadth of these provisions raises concerns about the necessity and proportionality of the use of recording devices, and the ICCL has noted that these are particularly concerning in relation to the right to public assembly – especially if later paired with facial recognition technology (Irish Council for Civil Liberties, ‘Submissions on Digital Recording Bill’, accessed 2 December 2024, https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/210813-FINAL-ICCL-Submission-Digitial-Recording-Bill-2.pdf, p.25).
The main safeguard in relation to these devices is that their use should (as far as practicable) be overt, with body worn cameras to be visible with a visible indicator showing when they are being operated. There is no other requirement for e.g. signage to show that recording devices are being used or that a garda be in uniform when using the device.
The Act does not provide for retention periods regarding data obtained using recording devices, leaving this to the code of practice to be established under Part 8. The Act provides that data obtained using recording devices may be processed for any of the policing purposes already mentioned – leaving open the possibility of data being used for a different purpose other than the one for which it was obtained.
