Following Parliamentary questions over Ireland’s use of facial-imaging software to detect identity fraud, Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty assured the practice was compliant with the law, The Irish Times reports. The department maintains that it does not process biometric data, and Doherty added that the collection and printing of “a simple jpeg image” did not constitute “the collection or processing of special category data.” She added, “This arithmetic template is not stored on the public services card, does not form part of the public service identity set, and is not shared with any other third party. They are stored only in the facial image matching software’s database held in the department’s own secure data centres.”
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