Sensors & Switches

Well, if existing time and attendance recording methods were not frequently abused, there would be no need for a more secure authentication. The technology exists, it is reliable and affordable, and organizations desire a more 'third party' sort of time and attendance recording... employees who punched a time card for another are to blame for this shift in recording (a simplification, but you get the idea).

Yeesh. The next thing you know, someone will be complaining about being x-rayed at the airport by TSA.

I've seen photo ID tags that have RFID and barcodes. The RFID is used to enter/exit the building and the employee periodically scans the barcode on his/her ID tag to show he/she has completed a task. It would take an extreme amount of trickery to fool the supervisor and the computer tracking system into thinking an absent employee was present.

Sounds like the Government would have their hands in on this some how to keep track of everyone and their movements. I feel my biometrics are personal and shouldn't be disclosed to my employer. I would guess our biometrics would be stored in our personnel files, which would make it easy for a hacker to obtain my identity and personal information. This sounds to big brother to me. If companies are having so much trouble keeping track of who is at work or at what time, than maybe they need to have employees report to their supervisor to clock in and out.

Yes, the government wants to know where you eat lunch every day.

And why not? The local are always the ones who know the best burger joints. When I go traveling I always ask the local where they go for food.

If they are having this much trouble with their employees they should find new employees.

When you take employment with a company you agree to their conditions. That being said, I allow my image to be used for security purposes only. Under the Privacy Act (in Australia) if the company wants use my image for other purposes they have to ask my permission.

I would say "finger prints" fit into the same rules. If the company uses finger prints or eye scans as apart of their security, which I comply with as apart of my employment then they can only use it for security purposes.

The question is who polices them? Should the owner of the print (namely me) be responsible for the monitoring how my print or scans are used? I think so, but I should do so with the backing of law

In Post #3 Usbport wrote

"I would guess our biometrics would be stored in our personnel files, which would make it easy for a hacker to obtain my identity and personal information."

and in Post #6 ozone88 stated

"I would say "finger prints" fit into the same rules. If the company uses finger prints or eye scans as apart of their security, which I comply with as apart of my employment then they can only use it for security purposes."

Now these fears may not be founded as there is an extremely secure way to store data like fingerprints so that even if the file is accessed the fingerprint cannot be retrieved.

This is done in a similar way to the way passwords and PINs are stored on magnetic card. The way this works is to take the raw data as keyed in or scanned and before storing it pass it through a one way algorithm with the end result being stored rather than the raw data. Then when you want to check to see if a finger print/password/PIN you again pass the raw data through the algorithm and compare the result with the stored data. If the results match then the match is a positive, if they don't then there is no match.

So in reality the raw data is never stored in any form only the encrypted data and the encryption algorithms are specifically designed so that there is no way to reverse them and obtain the raw data from the encrypted form regardless of how much time and computing power is available.

When you consider that all that is being stored is an encrypted form of the data that can in no way be interpreted as a finger print unless you have the original finger print, the question becomes;

Can the encrypted form can be classed as a finger print at all?

If the answer is no then there really isn't any invasion of privacy or storage of biometric data and no way of utilizing it other than for the intended purpose.

It would be the undocumented workers or people hiding from authorities that have the larger preblems with it.

Or. maybe some of us who care about keeping our freedoms from being manipulated by the Government have a larger problem with it. It's about not freely giving up our rites so easily and has nothing to do with running and hiding from the law. Slowly but surely our Constitutional rites are being taken away without most people even realizing it's going on.

Or maybe I, as an employer, am unwilling to allow theft of service to continue.

"It would be the undocumented workers or people hiding from authorities that have the larger preblems with it." Rubbish. This has nothing to do with law enforcement. Please read the story again for clarification.

mrclean you said "Slowly but surely our Constitutional rites are being taken away without most people even realizing it's going on." I would not disagree that erosion of our constitutional rights is a real concern, but is employee identity verification really a part of that issue? Where were your concerns in 1986?

Where were your concerns in 1986?

My concerns were my graduation from senior high.

Yes, I did read the article and am simply voicing my opinion that I feel using someones biometrics as a way of simply clocking in and out of work, other than some top secret government facility, is an invasion of a persons privacy. As far as hiring undocumented workers shame on the employer for not doing a better back ground check before hiring them and people hiding from authorities probably wouldn't be working for a company with such high tech equipment to take biometrics.

These are just my opinions and shouldn't be taken so personal. Let's keep it friendly I don't mean to step on any toes here, but I have a rite just the same as any other CR4 member to reply to a post with my opinions.

Have a nice day.

My comment about reading the story again is directed to our guest #9, and agrees with your comment in #10.

My comments are not intended to offend or insult anyone. This is an important issue, and I would like to hear your thoughts and comments, as well as anyone else who has an opinion or constructive input. _{^{(Maybe my comment "Rubbish" was not so constructive )}}

Regarding 1986, that was the year the Employment Eligibility Form I-9 was introduced. This illustrates (to a degree) some of your points about the slow erosion of personal privacy in the USA.

The I-9 is not a big brother ploy taking away rights. This was implemented to be sure that employers were hiring LEGAL social security card holding and taxpaying individuals. This Initiative was implemented to be sure that tax paying citizens of the United States got the jobs not a bunch of Border Jumpers.

As far as taking your finger prints or retinal scans that is becoming a bit too personal, like a corporation that has been in business for years being "ordered" to lower the calorie's in their happy meals or stop selling them altogether. How about personal choice of the masses not KINGS RULE which our fore fathers fled from.

We are going backwards to the end times which brought us here, Socialism!!!

^AMEN

Big brother wants to watch you closely in your business, but this is illegal. You might loose in court big, so better re-thing stupid decision to steal peoples biometrics. Yes! biometrics belongs to a person and you have no rights to steal it!

Retired Layer!

I look on this more as a convenience for the employee than an infringement of rights. If there needs to be some sort of security, then finger or eye scans would mean that I don't have to carry a key or a card of any sort. It would be kind of difficult to forget your finger or your eye in your other jacket!