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London Tube Cleaners Don't Want Fingerprint Clock-in
Bismillah writes "Biometrics is hot stuff, not just for Apple but cleaning companies like the UK division of Denmark's IIS which tidies the London Underground railway network. However, the cleaners aren't happy about having to clock in and out with biometric fingerprint sensors, and are taking industrial action to stop the practice."
The only "civil liberty" it attacks is the ability to fraudulently sign in for someone else.
Says another of Big Brother's useful idiots.
This. Where I work, they required us to be fingerprinted and did a background check. Then I found out that they send the prints to the state, and the state keeps them on file. I didn't consent to that.
Then they wanted me to do a fingerprint for the building I worked in so I can get in after 5:30. As is my legal right, I opted out and they have to provide an alternative means for me to gain entry. Of course, they didn't actually do that, so now if it is after 5:30 and I happen to be outside, I just go home.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Fingerprints for this purpose are usually hashed. I.e. you are not able to reverse it back to a picture of their fingerprint.
For some definitions of "reverse." By "hashed" what you really mean is a list of minutiae - x,y coordinates of significant features like ridges, ridge splits, whorls, loops, etc. The list of minutiae isn't enough to reconstruct the entire fingerprint, but it is enough to make a fake print that will scan and pass as the original print.
So it won't stand up against a human doing a forensic examination (at least not a human who takes their job seriously) but it will pass an automated system with flying colors.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Posting AC because I work at a company involved with fingerprint biometrics.
Depending on the type of sensors used and how much of the processing is done at the sensor, the range of usable data that can be retrieved is;
1. can reconstruct a fingerprint-like pattern that will emulate you sufficiently for that particular sensor model, though it looks nothing like a human fingerprint
2. can get reasonably close to a fingerprint-like pattern that can fool sensors using similar physical techniques and detection algorithms, but still not a human fingerprint
3. we actually have the human fingerprint as a bitmap in software (in particular strip type or small contact readers need to reconstruct the total image) and then do the detection run, so it's trivial to slip a copy out to a third party (yay debug modes) though the resolution effects how well we can recreate the human fingerprint (sufficient time with a graphic editor can overcome this)
Now, having the fingerprint doesn't solve other issues like liveness detection (dead finger check) in the emulated finger, but that is a replication implementation issue (thin gelatin glove finger trick works surprisingly well).
But the whole nonreversibility thing? Yeah, most manufacturers are blowing smoke up your ass.
Now, a security system is of poor design if it uses non-revocable step. Identity authentication is a funny thing, since the government often gets involved at various stages.
In the US, work-to-rule and slowdown are 2 different but similar actions:
- In work-to-rule, union members follow all procedures perfectly, including the stupidly contradicting ones as a way of slowing up the works. This is the least risky union tactic, because any time management calls union members on it they can point out that they are correctly and diligently following the procedures that management put in place, and that if there's a problem it's with the procedures rather than the workers following them.
- In a slowdown, union members simply work more slowly (letting some of the product get ruined if needed). This is obviously a bit more risky, but it is a common escalation if a work-to-rule doesn't solve the union's problem.
Both tactics can wreak havoc with productivity, but are significantly less messy than a all-out strike.
I am officially gone from