Biometrics in the Workplace

ryth writes "The Globe and Mail reports that McDonald's Restaurants and a few other companies in Canada have introduced palm-scanning technologies for employees. Workers are now expected to 'sign' in and out using their palm prints to record the exact time of arrival and the identity of the employee. Quoted in the article Jorn Nordmann, president of S.M. Products, was blunt about why he installed a hand scanner at his fish-processing plant in Delta, B.C. 'If you want to control a whole bunch of people, it's the only way to go.' It seems that some of the most underpaid and undervalued workers are starting to be treated no better than the animals they are frying up." Except for the frying part.

Control Central

[hplasm]

'If you want to control a whole bunch of people, it's the only way to go.'

Coming soon to a population center near you...

Re:Swipe Card

[Dilbert_]

I guess this also explains those 'Employees are expected to wash their hands after using the lavatory' signs then ;-)

Re:selfridges london has it already

[hplasm]

Sounds like the system isn't being used properly cos they never get the overtime calculated right...

Ain't that like management? Check the employee in/out times with an atomic clock, work out the overtime with a sundial...

Re:Control Central

[Anonymous Coward]

The solution to this is obvious. Except for the frying part.

Just dip your hands in a deep fryer on slap them down on your McDonalds grille, this should render your handprints unrecognizable.

It probably seems like a good idea

[AndIWonderIfIWonder]

Until one employee has a nasty accident with the deep fat fryer and can't clock in or out anymore.

And they realise they have to draw up new regulations that prevents anyone with extensive acid burns to their hands being employed, errr, maybe.

Re:Swipe Card

[rcamera]

but what if they lose a hand? they would no longer be able to access the building. hr says 'here you go... another hand. but don't lose this one!'

Re:Swipe Card

[cmacb]

"It's nobody's business where I am or what I am doing at any particular time, especially in public."

Yeah, I agree!

Just because I go to work for someone doesn't mean they have the right to know where I am or what I'm doing. It's bad enough that I have to give them my address for them to mail my check to. Now they want to track me for 8 hours a day too?! Give them an inch and they'll take a mile every time! I bet this is more the work of that Ashcroft guy. I bet Howard Dean has heard some rumors about this. You just wait and see!

Re:Swipe Card

[mwood]

"Then perhaps police officers should not be permitted to patrol the streets."

Goodness, yes. They might accidentally look at somebody.

I think someone completely rewrote the definition of "privacy" when we weren't looking.

Re:No big changes

[RealAlaskan]

Prove to us that you are a man of principle: Show us your years of uncashed paychecks.

You're joking, but I had a co-worker who really did this. He didn't cash any paychecks for over a year: his savings account was pretty big, and he just never got around to taking them to the bank.

Finally, he needed to buy something big, and got out his stack of paychecks. He noticed that some of them were stale dated, so he carried them over to the business office of the small, struggling computer business we worked for. A minute later, the book keeper ran upstairs to see the president, her face white as a sheet. If he had cashed the checks which were still valid, he'd have bankrupted the business.

They worked out an installment plan to get him paid, and made him promise to ALWAYS cash his checks the day he got them.

While the business lasted, we joked about his ``attempt to take over the business''.