Slashdot Mirror
Companies 'Can Sack Workers For Refusing To Use Fingerprint Scanners' (theguardian.com)
Businesses using fingerprint scanners to monitor their workforce can legally sack employees who refuse to hand over biometric information on privacy grounds, the Fair Work Commission has ruled. From a report: The ruling, which will be appealed, was made in the case of Jeremy Lee, a Queensland sawmill worker who refused to comply with a new fingerprint scanning policy introduced at his work in Imbil, north of the Sunshine Coast, late last year. Fingerprint scanning was used to monitor the clock-on and clock-off times of about 150 sawmill workers at two sites and was preferred to swipe cards because it prevented workers from fraudulently signing in on behalf of their colleagues to mask absences.
The company, Superior Woods, had no privacy policy covering workers and failed to comply with a requirement to properly notify individuals about how and why their data was being collected and used. The biometric data was stored on servers located off-site, in space leased from a third party. Lee argued the business had never sought its workers' consent to use fingerprint scanning, and feared his biometric data would be accessed by unknown groups and individuals.
The company, Superior Woods, had no privacy policy covering workers and failed to comply with a requirement to properly notify individuals about how and why their data was being collected and used. The biometric data was stored on servers located off-site, in space leased from a third party. Lee argued the business had never sought its workers' consent to use fingerprint scanning, and feared his biometric data would be accessed by unknown groups and individuals.
Wasn't mentioned in the overview text (although it can be relatively easily ascertained) but this article discusses an Australian ruling. Just for the sake of clarity before folks from other countries go off the rails thinking it directly effects them.
Call their bluff. It's a sawmill, right? What happens if he has an OJI and no longer has fingerprints? Sometimes you gotta make sacrifices to keep your privacy.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Is there a law saying you have to use your own finger?
It's aggravating that businesses collect all this personal data you - and good luck going somewhere they don't (they will start soon themselves) - but they are careless and really don't care. I don't care how many bullshit letters you get saying, "We take our data security very seriously!" AFTER your data was stolen; just like what happened with my wife's doctor - how fucking stupid can you be?!
"Take it very seriously!" Obviously you don't.
And then horseshit of outsourcing to a company for this shit (who may be good) who then outsources to another (who's not so good) who outsources it to some shit place who doesn't care because they got the job by being the lowest bidder and bullshitting their capabilities.
Our options? Suck it up.
Recourse? Not much, if any.
But we're stuck cleaning up the mess and paying for the damage.
but this kind of nonsense is coming to a job near you at some point. Australia is a borderline police state anyway. What with the myriad random breath/cannabis/meth roadside tests, snarfing all data that passes an ISP, heavy firearms restrictions (although Queensland is best of the Aussie states for firearms owners), go to jail for refusing to decrypt something law enforcement is interested in, etc. Beautiful place, awesome people, rotten government.
Management may unaware of it but that information will be accessed by unknown groups and individuals. It's just a matter of time.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I'd drop a turd on the CEO's desk and say "There's your biometric data sample".
"preferred to swipe cards because it prevented workers from fraudulently signing in on behalf of their colleagues to mask absences. "
this has never been an actual issue at any workplace ive seen that trotted out this salespitch dreck to justify using fingerprint scanners
it's also an admission of incompetence-- you can't even tell when your workers are absent? what do you do all day? what are you managing?
If you're a manager and need a fingerprint scanner to tell whether your employees are at work, please relinquish the title to someone more qualified.
If they agree to use the biometric sensors as a condition of being hired, then they have no grounds for objection. If the company institutes a new policy requiring biometric scanning AFTER the employee has started working there, it's pretty much a unilateral change in the contract... but probably the best recourse if you object is to seek employment elsewhere anyway. The first question a lawyer will ask is, "How have you been harmed?", because their commission is based on the dollar value of the harm done to you.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Use fake finger prints.
Problem solved.
QED
I would not work for a company that demanded my fingerprints. I don't work for a company that demands my fingerprints and I've secured my future so I will never be put in that position of having to work for another. When it is a private entity pulling this shit you do have options. You can go work for another company, start a business of your own, etc.
The real problem we face is our government(s) constant attack and the erosion of our privacy from it. Not this private situation where you have two voluntary parties with an agreement between each other for which either party can kill at any time (at least in free countries). They scream about security and even privacy while then undermining these very things. It's frequently under the guise of "security", our "children", "communism", "terrorism", or whatever else is the scare tactic of the day.
Demanding we register our vehicles and put license plates on them is one good example of this. While initially they argued it was needed for cops to track down stolen vehicles or something of that nature there is far more these things are used for today and its done without your consent. This sort of thing is constantly being used to erode our ability to control at some level our rights to privacy and security we naturally have rather than legally have in public. That is a far greater threat to our privacy and freedom than what any one company demands for which we can simply refuse or opt out of partaking in.
I don't object to people filming in public. That is a freedom of speech issue. I do object to government doing it or obtaining access to surveillance data from private entities for any reason. These are a threat to us more than anything else.
Government can do things far worse than any company and it routinely does. Government can effectively suspend or revoke your right to travel for instance simply by suspending a drivers license. And before you say "just take a bus", buses can't take you from point A to random point B. They can only take you from specific points to other specific points which means if I want to go from my house in the suburbs to work 5 miles away they have effectively killed both my right to travel and my ability to hold down a job.
Maybe you owe them some money or they think you do anyway. Maybe they didn't like some stupid thing you did when you were a teenager and now they're preventing you from invoking your right to travel via stopping or delaying you access to getting a drivers license. The government does both of these things and a huge swath of the US population has had a drivers license revoked for non-safety related reasons. Sometimes its a debt related issue where a state paid out welfare to a mother who never informed or denied the fact a man was the father of her child. Years later the state goes after the father who can't possibly pay up 10s of thousands of dollars on a dime. License and passport suspended. In other cases they prevent young adults from obtaining drivers licenses due to mistakes in youth (graffiti). These things then hinder the ability of our young people to get jobs. It's actually worse because the states have even hindered this for "safety" reasons to all young people in some states. I couldn't find kids out of college to work for me in NJ because there was a year delay in obtaining a drivers license from the issuance of a permit. Absolutely bat shit insane.
I co-host a major syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States and on multiple continents. This show airs 3 hours every day 7 days a week. One of my co-hosts spoke out against the hypocrisy of the FBI for distributing child porn while at the same time arguing that the distribution of child porn hurts children (he had a 7 year old himself). While the tech media covered the play pen case no major media outlets did outside this talk show. Two weeks later the FBI raided the show's studio and stole 10s of thousands of dollars worth of equipment while simultaneously smearing the main host of the show (the internet con
If you can't tell if your employees are at work or not because you haven't seen their timesheets, then you're not managing well. You can't tell if they're being productive, meeting quotas, etc.? This place sounds like a shit hole.
I used to work at a TS facility with fingerprint scanners, but I build furniture as a hobby. My fingerprints are cut by blades, abraded by polishing compounds, dissolved by finishing chemicals. They figured out a way around it, and I'm shocked a lumber mill would make a big deal out of it. Bluntly, if you've got a good employee (especially a talented hands-on guy), you try not to piss them off because they can easily find jobs elsewhere.
...for the fault with the fingerprint reader. Those responsible have been sacked.
I had no idea fingerprints could grow back!
I wonder if acid is more permanent than something like a strong base dissolving skin (I think your case?).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Our local amusement park sells you a season-pass and then uses your fingerprint to identify you and grant you access to the site.
When creating my account, the amusement park employee readied the machine and then directed me to put my index finger onto the reader.
Instead, I put my middle finger onto the reader.
The employee started to protest but an instant later, the reader chimed that it had successfully recorded my print, so the employee switched mid-sentence from protesting to saying "you must always use THAT finger", to which I smiled and nodded.
What I did may be not much in the way of resisting Big Brother, but I laugh every time they ask me to identify myself, and give them the finger
because it prevented workers from fraudulently signing in on behalf of their colleagues to mask absences.
This right here. When people are called out on theft, and anti-theft measures are implemented, the thieves are the ones who bitch and whing on at how awful the new policy is.
Lee argued the business had never sought its workers' consent to use fingerprint scanning, and feared his biometric data would be accessed by unknown groups and individuals.
More like he feared his buddy couldn't clock in for him anymore when he was hungover from the weekend.
Glad a judge saw through this guy's bogus claim.
Or if they want, they could get the same information from the break room trash can, only slightly less conveniently.
Convenience isn't a legitimate argument for why someone should be allowed to do something. If someone wants they can watch you from the sidewalk everywhere you go with a pair of binoculars so long as they're not too creepy about it. That doesn't mean it should be okay for your boss to put an ankle monitor on your foot in your off-hours.
Seriously your a sawmill worker your not Kent to have nice soft girly hands scuff your prints so bad they won't read... works for my brother who is a auto elec..
His police record states prints may change due to work conditions
Fears solved...
And the news from a backwards country down under matters to the rest of the would how?
While I like the idea of forcing certain biometric data to have some modicum of security, I have to wonder about this. The only thing I use my fingerprint for right now is to log into my work laptop. So if someone sold my fingerprints on the black market I don't think that there's anything that a nefarious actor to do with them, without also physically getting a hold of my work laptop. As far as I know they're not used to take out credit, make purchases, sign legal contracts, create obligations, or anything like that.
... already - I think I read Australia was a penal colony anyway :-)
https://www.wikihow.com/Fake-Fingerprints
What shithole country is this, Shitholistan??
Youre shit mate
In the same way that the US was the untamed lands where religious whack-doodles chose to go because they weren't permitted to behave as insanely as they wanted to back home.
Actually, that's a bad comparison. The US remains home to a crap-ton of religious whack-doodles while most of the felons who were shipped off to Australia are probably dead and so their criminal punishment done, leaving mostly regular folk behind.
The claims by Superior Wood and Mitrefinch seem to imply that fingerprint *template* mode is the only mode of operation. The specifications given by that manufacturer, Lumidigm, clearly indicate their devices are capable of producing WSQ (Wavelet Scalar Quantization) images of the fingerprint at 500 dpi. The specifications also indicate that image capture is *faster* than producing a fingerprint template. Andrew Douglass also asserts that fingerprint images are too large to store. In terms of storing directly on the fingerprint reader itself, that is true. However, WSQ images are not too large to transmit and then store so his assertion ultimately is false.
Neither the information from Superior Wood or Mitrefinch address that if a third-party gains access to the fingerprint scanner, the equipment already is capable of transmitting images of the fingerprint as part of the product. Also they never addressed if company policy could change in the future such that the company could choose to transmit fingerprint images that it could do so while continuing to use the same Lumidigm fingerprint scanners. The fact that ANSI 378+ template mode for the readers is the current preferred way used when the system works as currently intended does not address Jeremy Lee's fears.
Following Superior Wood's logic that the intended mode of operation is a reasonable way to dismiss the true capabilities, employees should be able to submit that the intend to only be truthful about when they clock in and clock out. The fact they have the capability to be dishonest should not apply as soon as they claim their intended mode of operation is to always be honest. Therefore, following Superior Wood's reasoning the fingerprint readers should never have been needed in the first place since intention is more important than capability.
However, the fact that Superior Wood does feel the fingerprint readers are needed to keep employees honest is an indication that capabilities are more important than intention. Therefore, Superior Wood should have put more care into a clearly written policy of always only operating the fingerprint readers in ANSI 378+ template mode and also provided a breach notification policy if a third-party is able to compromise that intended mode of operation.
It seems like Superior Wood decided to just pretend WSQ imaging mode on the Lumidigm fingerprint readers just doesn't exist. I believe this goes against their credibility in terms of being honest about the situation and makes it clear they are just a horrible employer.
Corps are using time clocks to replace boss types who know where their employees are. You are not paid based based on whether you do anything. You are paid based upon clocking in. It is natural such a system is going to be hacked.
Workers have no rights. Fuck you, prole, that's why.
Yeesh. Why are Australians so messed up?
Australia stopped being a penal colony long before fingerprinting was demonstrated to be worth the cost of doing.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Perhaps he can try the AI generated generic fingerprint creator. He's got a 1 in 5 chance it'll work and he can get paid to be at the beach all day.
https://www.electronicsweekly.com/news/research-news/ai-skeleton-key-fingerprint-fools-1-5-id-systems-2018-11/
at work, then use index for home use.
If by "insane", you mean " don't worship the king and what he tells us", then yes. The US did have that.
You're probably just jealous that you never got up the balls to tell the king to stuff it.
See, we can both troll!