Limerick City and County Council yet to pay €110k fine over CCTV cameras
LIMERICK City and County Council has not yet paid a fine imposed on it by the Data Protection Commissioner over it’s ‘illegal’ use of CCTV cameras.
The €110,000 fine was imposed last December following a three-year investigation by the DPC into nearly 400 CCTV cameras in public locations across the city and county.
The local authority is working closely with senior garda management in the Limerick division and an application is to be made to the Garda Commissioner in the coming weeks in relation to 376 cameras.
Briefing members of the Limerick Joint Policing Committee, the council’s Head of Digital Services, Alan Dooley, said if approval, under the provisions of the Garda Siochana Act, is not forthcoming most of the cameras will have to be switched off before Easter.
He said significant work has been carried out since the Data Protection Commission published its findings and that he is “highly confident’ the application to the Garda Commissioner will be successful – giving a legal basis for the retention of the cameras.
As part of the process to rectify matters, Limerick City and County Council and An Garda Siochana will enter a formal “Joint Data Controller Agreement’.
A public consultation process will begin this week and a data protection assessment will be carried out in relation to each individual camera.
Inspector Sandra Heelan, who has been working with the council, told the meeting that gardai are “fully supportive” of the application which will be submitted to the Garda Commissioner.
She said CCTV schemes, such as those in Limerick are very important in assisting gardai with their duties and with solving crimes such as the murder of Rose Hanrahan in 2017 which saw gardai download around 70,000 hours of CCTV footage.
Mr Dooley, who confirmed the DPC fine has not yet been paid, said all of the CCTV cameras included in the application are already in place.
He added that new procedures as to who can access and download footage have been drawn up and that all civilians with access will be garda vetted.
The application was unanimously approved by members of the JPC.