Fingerprint Requirement For a Work-Study Job?

BonesSB writes "I'm a student at a university in Massachusetts, where I have a federal work-study position. Yesterday, I got an email from the office that is responsible for student run organizations (one of which I work for) saying that I need to go to their office and have my fingerprints taken for the purposes of clocking in and out of work. This raises huge privacy concerns for me, as it should for everybody else. I am in the process of contacting the local newspaper, getting the word out to students everywhere, and talking directly to the office regarding this. I got an email back with two very contradictory sentences: 'There will be no image of your fingerprints anywhere. No one will have access to your fingerprints. The machine is storing your prints as a means of identifying who you are when you touch it.' Does anybody else attend a school that requires something similar? This is an obvious slippery slope, and something I am not taking lightly. What else should I do?"

Comments

Modern Fingerprint Scanners dont keep prints

[Tepshen]

The way that most modern fingerprint scanners work is by using matching algorithms. They scan your fingerprint and translate that into a numeric value and then store that. Not a copy of your fingerprint itself. This numeric value cannot be used to recreate your fingerprint but it can however be used to match the output that only your fingerprint will produce when scanned. To be perfectly candid its far easier to steal your fingerprints by stealing something you own than it is to take them from a fingerprint security/tracking system.

Re:You're dumb

[Midnight Thunder]

Solutions like this are often used to prevent someone clocking-in for you. I used this type of solution at a sports club which used to go to, where you would enter your member number followed by you finger print. Chances are this is another closed system, so it the finger prints probably won't get much further than the database.

It's all stupid, and for stupid reasons

[gerf]

Apparently if you visit Brazil, Europeans and Brazilians go through one line. Americans, we can all step over here to get fingerprinted, retina scanned, etc.

Why? We do it to them, so they do it back. F.

Re:It's all stupid, and for stupid reasons

[aylons]

Yes, that is right. This is due to Brazilian Constitution, which says that all diplomacy must be reciprocal. E.g., for every country which demands a visa from Brazilian people, Brazil demands a visa for their people to get in Brazil. If the government, the Federal Police or the airport authority decides to do any different, they will get sued.

They don't store your actual fingerprint

[Colin Smith]

Not the image anyway. They store the relative positions of specific details of your print. 2 minutes on Google would have told you this.

The question remains though whether you want them to hold a representation (of any kind) of any part of your body on file.
 

Re:They don't store your actual fingerprint

[goaliemn]

I've installed systems that work like this. They store afew statistical points of your fingerprint. If someone actually got those points that they stored, they still couldn't make a complete fingerprint.

This type of system is usually implemented due to former employees punching in for each other. This is a way that makes that more difficult.

Re:Contradictory

[digitalunity]

I am on federal work study right now and I have not had to submit my fingerprints for anything. You have a few options.

Accept that this is the way they track work study hours.

If you can afford it and the privacy concerns are too compelling, decline the work and let them know why in a formal letter. It may go directly to the waste bin but at least you made your reasons known.

Lastly, you can try to change the policy. Contact your student senate for some backing as they're the most likely to listen, although not the most likely to have power to change it. A couple of suggestions: Switch from bio-informatics scanning methods to plain old bar code badges, RFID chips or paper timecards.

My school does work study timecards on paper. It's probably the most likely to be abused, but it is convenient for everyone. I'd be more than happy to use an RFID token or bar code badge for clocking in and out. Wouldn't work very well for my specific job, considering I work from home, but in theory I would accept either.

Your ability to change the policy by force is pretty limited. Employment rights(especially regarding privacy) vary by state when it comes to work study. You could try to contact your local department of labor but it's unlikely they will give you anything other than a headache.

Re:Non-issue?

[Macfox]

Ask if the unit is FIPS 201 certified. If it is then you can be certain that no reproducible image leaves the unit. There's no more identifying data than a password or PIN that leaves the unit.

There are cheaper units on the market that centrally process the finger print image to speed up matching, which is open to abuse.

Disclaimer: I previously worked for a fingerprint / time-clock manufacture that produced FIPS compliant devices.