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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.

2 of 145 comments (clear)

  1. Re:article discusses Australian ruling by niftymitch · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well down under... that explains it.
    In reading it is unclear if the reader (device and data) was fully under the control of the company or if the company
    was insulated from a data breach or abuse by a contracted service.

    Then there is an issue with a labor force that likely has missing digits (as I do). There are days when I
    want to give other drivers a specific gesture but cannot.

    This down under ruling is a hint or early warning that other parts of the world need to establish
    rules for such devices. It seems that there are ways to do it terrible wrong and
    ways that solve the problem of fraud to a company.

    In this time zone such a device could be subject to audit by ICE and ill documented labor
    swept up and turned into cash cows for the contract incarceration industry. In a 1984esque
    world I can see such readers being mandated.

    --
    Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
  2. Re: OJI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Diabetic.

    We have finger print reader to go with our badge reader to enter NOC. 9 times out of 10 they do not work for me, on any finger.

    Reason over all body hydration Finger tips ballon or prune almost moment by moment.

    They had to break the system since finger print reader do not work and then become ADA complancy issues.