Clocking in at work - fingerprint?

Mr. Presentable

Where I work is about to get a fingerprint clocking in system and some people here wonder if it's a violation of privacy. To store fingerprints, I mean.

Do they need your permission or does it have to be in the terms of your employment or what?

My brothers work uses swipe cards, but they clock each other in and all, which happens here too, so that's why they're doing the fingerprint thing.

So what's the norm, and the law?

seamus

Sounds a bit ridiculous, but I'm not sure if it's an invasion of privacy. Like your hair colour, eye colour, skin colour, height, etc, your fingerprints are essentially in the public domain (that is, they're not kept private, unless you wear gloves all the time), and storing such information is similar to a company storing pictures of all of their employess for verification purposes - I know my company does this.

Information that would be private (i.e. not necessarily in the public domain) would be things like sexual preference, bank balance, salary, credit card numbers. I don't think fingerprints are quantifiable as a personal privacy. I'm no solicitor though, I'm only guessing.

For the record, the fingerprint biometric has been demonstrated to be insecure and hacked by anyone with and Internet connection and a few basic, easily available materials.

Perhaps you might want to bring this to the attention of the guy who thinks the fingerprint scanner is a great idea.

K!LL!@N

They probably won't even store your actual fingerprint, it'd most likely be an encrypted version of what ever data the scanner reads from your fingerprint.

I think the only people who'd really have a problem with this are the ones who are getting their mates to clock them in.

As for the fake finger print thing, while it's interesting, I think it'd be fairly impractical for a group of mates to be carrying around fake fingers so they can clock each other in.
The error rates mentioned in the article would also make it harder for it to go unnoticed.

Killian

Victor

A fingerprint would be personal information and would require the employee's permission to be used and it would need to be included in the contract and the information would need to be kept under the Data Protection Act.

It may be unreasonable for an employee to object to such a change in their conditions of contract.

Victor

Similar concept (but the data won't really be passed to the CIA, unless you fill your truck with ANFO).

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/4522039?view=Eircomnet

Compensation claim for satellite monitoring fails
From:ireland.com
Saturday, 27th November, 2004

Drivers for a construction company who are to have their movements monitored by a satellite surveillance system have had a compensation claim rejected by the Labour Court.

The Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system has been introduced by Concast Precast, which employs more than 200 people in Dublin and Carlow.

In a claim on behalf of 28 drivers of lorries, vans and cranes, SIPTU said the "Big Brother"-type system was very intrusive.

The union sought compensation of €1,500 for each of the affected employees. It had earlier rejected an offer by the company to pay €200 to each as a goodwill gesture.

In a recommendation just published on its website, the court said that the work practice changes associated with the new system were minimal.

It rejected the union's claim but said the company should increase its goodwill payment to the drivers to €300 each.

The company had argued that compensation was not warranted as the GPS system did not require any additional effort by the drivers.

It said information from the system would not be used for disciplinary purposes, but if there was a conflict of evidence GPS data could be used to clarify matters.

It also said that timesheets would continue to be used for the calculation of wages, and the GPS system would be used only as a means of verifying hours.

It also argued that technology was continuously being updated, and to pay compensation each time this took place would place a major financial burden on the company.

SIPTU told the court its preference would be that the GPS system would not be installed in the first place.

The compensation it sought reflected the level of intrusion, it said.

Hobbes

K!LL!@N wrote:

I think the only people who'd really have a problem with this are the ones who are getting their mates to clock them in.

Doubtful. Your protected under the data protection act so you can ask them clearly what information is kept and what is used for (get it in writing). For example, say something is stolen is that database going to be used to compare against fingerprints? Would it be handed over to a third party? What happens when you leave the company, will it be removed?

I think it'd be fairly impractical for a group of mates to be carrying around fake fingers so they can clock each other in.

You can make gel caps quite easy from household goods that can fake the scanners quite well (it is doubtful a clocking in machine will have state of the art scanner). You can also make these gel caps from house hold goods.

I can understand a fingerprint reader for a secure room but for clocking in, they are just being asses about it.

A previous job (in the US) we had a secure room that read your whole hand (prints and thermal scan? Not sure). It got a few months out of the novelty but after that people just used the card instead.

The error rates mentioned in the article would also make it harder for it to go unnoticed.

Victor

And does Uncle Sam get a copy?

Healio

they had this where i work but it didnt work properly, but we were lectured for about twenty minutes on how it is not an actual finger print but just an image. Then the finger one was replaced by the whole hand one, which apparently only scans the pressure points and shape or something to that effect, but anyone with big hands cant fit them on the scanner part.

Healio

Hobbes wrote:

What happens when you leave the company, will it be removed?

AFAIK you type in your employee no. then put your hand on the scan thing.
so when you leave the company, a new person takes your employee no. and then you allow your own hand/finger to be assigned to that employee no.