16-07-2025
Provisions to update 30-year-old phone interception laws due 'in months'
Justice minister Jim O'Callaghan has said the draft legislation to update 30-year-old laws on phone interception powers will be brought to Government in 'the coming months'.
Current legislation dates back to 1993 and does not explicitly apply to more modern forms of communication — from emails to social media text and voice apps to encrypted messages.
Mr O'Callaghan said successive oversight judges have repeatedly called for the laws to be updated, given the impact on organised crime and security intelligence gathering and investigations.
Speaking at the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), he said privacy and technical arguments against intercepting encrypted communications were being addressed by the European Commission.
He said the General Scheme of a new Communications (Interception and Lawful Access Bill) will established the 'clear principle' that interception powers apply to 'all communication services'.
To safeguard privacy concerns he said that new, additional, safeguards would include the need for State agencies to get prior authorisation from a judge.
Justice minister Jim O'Callaghan said successive oversight judges have repeatedly called for the laws to be updated, given the impact on organised crime and security intelligence gathering and investigations. Picture: Eamonn Farrell
'Around 85% of criminal investigations now rely on such electronic evidence, requests for data addressed to service providers have tripled between 2017 and 2022, and the need for these data is only increasing,' he told the IIEA.
'Critical criminal evidence remains inaccessible because it is deleted, cannot be obtained, cannot be retrieved from seized devices, or cannot be read because the data is encrypted.'
The minister said that related EU proposals to compel social media companies to actively scan their platforms for messages that contain images and videos of child sexual abuse "remain stuck" among member states.
'Many companies are simply not doing enough to address the proliferation of this material on their platforms,' he said.
'But negotiations have centred on the right to privacy, which has threatened to completely undermine the intention to protect children from very real harm.'
On arguments the proposals are not technically possible, he said: 'Companies are able to scan for spam, or malware on their services.
"They should be able to likewise for this awful content.'
Mr O'Callaghan said he intends to publish an amendment bill to the Recording Devices Act 2023 to allow gardaí use facial recognition technology, to scan previous held imagery to identify a suspect or child abuse imagery.
He said a second piece of legislation would allow for the technology to be used in live situations.
He said that under the European Union AI Act, gardaí, after receiving judicial authorisation, could use real-time biometric identification.
The minister also criticised 'very partisan' commentary about the Terrorist Offences (Amendment) Bill 2025.
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