Biometrics in the Workplace

ryth writes "The Globe and Mail reports that McDonald's Restaurants and a few other companies in Canada have introduced palm-scanning technologies for employees. Workers are now expected to 'sign' in and out using their palm prints to record the exact time of arrival and the identity of the employee. Quoted in the article Jorn Nordmann, president of S.M. Products, was blunt about why he installed a hand scanner at his fish-processing plant in Delta, B.C. 'If you want to control a whole bunch of people, it's the only way to go.' It seems that some of the most underpaid and undervalued workers are starting to be treated no better than the animals they are frying up." Except for the frying part.

Comments

Do you people even know how most of this works?!

[jfulcher]

I am in the time and attendance field. My company sells and I setup biometric clocks along with regular clocks. The hand recognition clock we use is made by a company called recognition systems. You people are too damned paranoid. This system, nor the thumb one we use does NOT take your handprint, or thumbprint. You can really tell if you actually look at the handpunch device. The bottom that you are placing your palm on is an optical reflecting surface (just like the old optical mice). It has these little pegs on the inside and it measures the thickness of your fingers and the length. The thumb system that measures the thickness of the ridges and amount of ridges in your thumb and just record that. It does NOT store your fingerprints, nor does the prior store a handprint. You guys need to RESEARCH what you are complaining about before you complain about it. And this was a poor job of research by the journalist that wrote this article. But they have an excuse, they are uninformed liberals, and definitley not in the technical field to even understand how technical things work. Most of you guys are in the technical field.