Garda requests for phone records down dramatically since new law was enacted

Gardaí, in response to a parliamentary question by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, said that 1,000 requests had been made for phone activity data to mobile suppliers in 2020. There were just  193 such requests between January and May of 2023. Picture: Niall Carson/PA

Garda requests to phone companies and internet service providers for customer and activity data had slowed to a trickle in the run up to the enactment of a controversial new data retention law last summer.

Just 299 such requests were made in the first five months of 2023, compared to nearly 5,000 across the 12 months of 2020.