Worker -fired for declining a face scan- awarded $23,200

[White Out 403]

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118...-awarded-23200

Hopefully this sets a precedent and we don't see this in Canada.

[2Stonedbirds]

Injury to feelings.

[CaptainCrunch]

Having worked in the payroll software side of things, I can say solidly that the biggest cost leakage with companies that use time sheets is time theft. It can't be fixed with paper time cards or even swipe cards. Unless you have a person that sits there and watches people swipe in by time card or punch card.



Yeah buddy, I'm going out drinking tonight here's my card swipe in for me. Or I'm leaving early punch out for me. Its harder with small companies but with huge companies its a problem.


When I was in the industry we started doing biometrics like Finger Prints or palm scans. But facial recognition was years away. For the most part these were closed systems and the data was stored locally, now that might have changed in the last few years with the rise of cloud based payroll solutions.



But its up to the companies to reassure the paranoid that their face scans or finger prints aren't being sold to pirates or ISIS.


However for the most part, if companies make it a condition of employment and inform you on hiring or on transition it becomes up to the employee on whether or not they accept working there.

[WhiteTiger]

It said KME failed to consult its employees about alternatives to paper-based timesheets before it decided to purchase the Timecloud facial scanning software.

Kinda wondering why the employees even needed to be consulted in the first place. This strikes me as the kind of thing they are just told, and if you don't like it, there's the door.

[mikephoen]

So this guy got $23,000 and now any future employer is going to see with a simple google search that he sued his last employer over something trivial, and he'll never get hired to a good job again. Brilliant.

[PsYcNeT]

Something we should all entrust to Private Corporations is our biometric data.

Most can't even reliably hold on to passwords for christsakes.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

So this guy got $23,000 and now any future employer is going to see with a simple google search that he sued his last employer over something trivial, and he'll never get hired to a good job again. Brilliant.

Trivial to you.

Giving over your biometric data is far from trivial with all the concerns these days about piracy and identity theft.

More people everywhere need to be objecting to stuff like this. Privacy is quickly becoming one of the most important issues, not the most trivial.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

To me, if an employee has a concern, it is the comoany's responsibility to address it.

By the sounds of it, the company refused to hear the employee's concerns.

This is a drastic change in how payroll is calculated.

- What is done with the facial recognition data?
- Who has access?
- How reliable is it?
- What is the process if there is a dispute?
- how accurate is it telling two people who look similar apart? IE: twins, siblings?
- How accurate is it at identifying people of different races?

All of those questions are legitimate. They all likely have reasonable answers, and reassurances.

That said, the company needs to address this with employees.

It's different from it being already implemented and a new employee accepting it or not taking the job. Also, a new employee is given time to ask these questions when deciding to accept/reject a job.

The article makes it out that the award was NOT for refusing to offer an alternative, it was due to a lack of addressing an employee's concerns with the system.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

Trivial to you.

Giving over your biometric data is far from trivial with all the concerns these days about piracy and identity theft.

More people everywhere need to be objecting to stuff like this. Privacy is quickly becoming one of the most important issues, not the most trivial.

That battle is long since over. You are under surveillance any time you leave your house. My over the counter security camera system has rudimentary face recognition software preinstalled. The privacy vs convenience war was fought, and convenience won.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

That battle is long since over. You are under surveillance any time you leave your house. My over the counter security camera system has rudimentary face recognition software preinstalled. The privacy vs convenience war was fought, and convenience won.

Right, but unless I succumbed to a request to have my face scanned for the program, your system has no idea who I am.

[White Out 403]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

That battle is long since over. You are under surveillance any time you leave your house. My over the counter security camera system has rudimentary face recognition software preinstalled. The privacy vs convenience war was fought, and convenience won.

By this lazy logic,...I assume you're fine then wit the government implanting a GPS tracker surgically into the back of your neck, right?

If not, why?

[Locke]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

That battle is long since over. You are under surveillance any time you leave your house. My over the counter security camera system has rudimentary face recognition software preinstalled. The privacy vs convenience war was fought, and convenience won.

You're not wrong and I dont disagree, but in this instance I think the company is in the wrong here.

You cant force people to sacrifice personal information like this, sight unseen, just because they work for you.

In the end though I think it goes back to punching a time-clock. I'm not going to pretend I have a magic-bullet solution for that but its something that I absolutely loathe. I personally prefer results-based compensation as opposed to hours worked and theres ways that works and ways it doesnt.

But I dont think I'd be comfortable with this either.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by White Out 403

By this lazy logic,...I assume you're fine then wit the government implanting a GPS tracker surgically into the back of your neck, right?

If not, why?

You already voluntarily carry one with you everywhere you go, so they don't really need to bother.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

That battle is long since over. You are under surveillance any time you leave your house. My over the counter security camera system has rudimentary face recognition software preinstalled. The privacy vs convenience war was fought, and convenience won.

That battle is far from over in workplaces. There are everyday people who stand up and fight to protect their privacy and the privacy of others by challenging their employers when they implement these types of systems. They do so at the risk of being fired and having their fight made public which as you mentioned comes with its own unintended consequences. I think it’s unfortunate that some would look to criticize an individual for doing so or to try and excuse the employer’s actions even after the courts ruled in the employee’s favour, rather than applaud the individual for making a big sacrifice to stand up for their(our) rights.

The risk and effort required vs the reward for taking on these fights will often deter most people from even bothering. I would wager that you’d either see a lot more people taking on these fights or a lot less companies implementing these types of invasive policies if doing so would result in more than just a slap on the wrist for the employer. The employee in this case paid a big price and could continue to do so for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Locke

You're not wrong and I dont disagree, but in this instance I think the company is in the wrong here.

You cant force people to sacrifice personal information like this, sight unseen, just because they work for you.

In the end though I think it goes back to punching a time-clock. I'm not going to pretend I have a magic-bullet solution for that but its something that I absolutely loathe. I personally prefer results-based compensation as opposed to hours worked and theres ways that works and ways it doesnt.

But I dont think I'd be comfortable with this either.

There's no real magic bullet solution. When I was working in payroll the amount of time theft that they were seeing was ludicris. Swipe cards and punch cards don't work with supervision, so it now becomes a matter of hiring more supervisors to walk the floor for example.


Even if you go to productivity tracking through stations, your still probably getting into some pretty evasive practices to track who's doing what when and how good they do it.


Suddenly we're looking at manufacturers following the Amazon model a lot more closely, especially on low skill labor positions.



You'd better be productive every day and following process everyday or your fired.


The question of privacy for biometrics still comes down to what the solution is that they use. Is it stored locally on the time clock, locally on a server or a cloud based solution. Because frankly the first two do remove some of the privacy issues.


If the company had explained this transition better to the employees, then this case dosen't happen.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Scroopy Noopers

Right, but unless I succumbed to a request to have my face scanned for the program, your system has no idea who I am.

After you've entered once, if I so desired, I can direct the system to watch for you entering again and have it send alerts. If you've signed up for a rewards program or ever special ordered something, I have a bunch of info I could tie to this image if I wanted. So far I've never actually done this, even for people we've caught shop lifting, but the function is available. And this is on a sub-$10K system with no customization. I imagine much more comprehensive systems are available, and in use, by many companies.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

That battle is far from over in workplaces. There are everyday people who stand up and fight to protect their privacy and the privacy of others by challenging their employers when they implement these types of systems. They do so at the risk of being fired and having their fight made public which as you mentioned comes with its own unintended consequences. I think it’s unfortunate that some would look to criticize an individual for doing so or to try and excuse the employer’s actions even after the courts ruled in the employee’s favour, rather than applaud the individual for making a big sacrifice to stand up for their(our) rights.

The risk and effort required vs the reward for taking on these fights will often deter most people from even bothering. I would wager that you’d either see a lot more people taking on these fights or a lot less companies implementing these types of invasive policies if doing so would result in more than just a slap on the wrist for the employer. The employee in this case paid a big price and could continue to do so for doing absolutely nothing wrong.

I basically agree with all of this, however I am resigned to the fact that the battle has been lost. It was fought before we even knew we were in the fight. This guy scored a pyrrhic victory of sorts, but that's at best all it was.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

There's no real magic bullet solution. When I was working in payroll the amount of time theft that they were seeing was ludicris. Swipe cards and punch cards don't work with supervision, so it now becomes a matter of hiring more supervisors to walk the floor for example.

Hiring more supervisors is a better solution than implementing systems that violate people’s privacy. I know time theft is a major issue at some workplaces but there are already proven solutions available that don’t require employees to give up their physical biometric data. I find it very odd that in this case the employer argued the system was implemented to prevent time theft yet they didn’t require their staff to use it for tracking their breaks.

Even if you go to productivity tracking through stations, your still probably getting into some pretty evasive practices to track who's doing what when and how good they do it.

I agree but I also think there is a difference between using software to track productivity where an employee logs in with a company ID rather than with a retina scan or finger prints.

Suddenly we're looking at manufacturers following the Amazon model a lot more closely, especially on low skill labor positions.

You'd better be productive every day and following process everyday or your fired.

Suddenly? The practices Amazon uses have been in use and development for decades. Amazon are just pushing it to the extreme. Be glad you don’t work in a place like that but also be aware that this is the direction in which more and more companies are going.

The question of privacy for biometrics still comes down to what the solution is that they use. Is it stored locally on the time clock, locally on a server or a cloud based solution. Because frankly the first two do remove some of the privacy issues.

Local storage removes some of the potential data breach risks but the employees would still be forced to give up their personal biometric data which is probably the bigger issue.

If the company had explained this transition better to the employees, then this case dosen't happen.

IMO that’s the saddest part of the whole story.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

After you've entered once, if I so desired, I can direct the system to watch for you entering again and have it send alerts. If you've signed up for a rewards program or ever special ordered something, I have a bunch of info I could tie to this image if I wanted. So far I've never actually done this, even for people we've caught shop lifting, but the function is available. And this is on a sub-$10K system with no customization. I imagine much more comprehensive systems are available, and in use, by many companies.

What are you running, a Casino?

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by Locke

What are you running, a Casino?

Exactly! If the system I have for a comic store has that available as a stock feature, imagine what casinos and airports have these days.