Privacy Objections To Biometrics
We're looking into adding Biometric Access Control products into our line, particularly fingerprint readers, and wondered if anyone had encountered issues regarding privacy concerns? Specifically objections from workers not wishing the company to hold employee fingerprints in a database. Any thoughts from the legal minds among us? It would help to anticipate any potential problems first.
Hello Barry:
It seems that many implementing biometrics sidestep legality concerns by making adoption "voluntary" vs. "compulsory".
For example at a local US Air Force base, an employee has the choice to use a fingerprint reader, OR they have the choice to ring a guard 30 minutes prior to a shift, wait for the guard to arrive, have credentials manually validated, and then they are escorted through the opening.
Obviously, the adoption of the biometric reader option is 100%.
24 Hour Fitness uses fingerprints for its ~3 million members and while a google search revealed a few internet complaints, it's been used for more than 3 years without any major problem / significant objection.
It may be a matter of exactly how the fingerprint information is stored. We're an integrator who uses Facekey fingerprint products. According to Facekey, fingerprints are converted to an encrypted algorithm before they are stored in the database. The fingerprint itself is not at snap shot picture, and there's no way a fingerprint can reconstructed from the database, even if the encryption key was broken, since it's an algorithm and not a picture.
Thanks for the responses. Interesting topic though right?
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