Employers warned over biometric technology

Employers are being warned about the use of technology that may encroach on staff privacy after a Motueka supermarket worker won a personal victory.

Keely-Anne Robinson, 44, threatened to resign rather than allow her employer, New World Motueka, to take an electronic image of her fingerprint for use in a biometric clock-in system.

Ms Robinson said: "I thought the only one who could do that was Mr Policeman".

After a short dispute was played out in public, Ms Robinson was yesterday told by her employer she could use a PIN number to clock in to her job as a part-time shelf stacker.

Union advocate Laila Harre, who became involved in the dispute, yesterday said Ms Robinson had won a victory for her colleagues who had not been properly consulted on the new system.

"It's really important that with any technology using unique identifying information, that employers accept there is a right to consent to these procedures," Ms Harre told the Herald.

Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff said new technologies had the potential to be invasive and employers had to think carefully before using them.

Foodstuffs South Island chief executive Steve Anderson said systems based on "digital recognition of fingerprints" had been used throughout the country, including supermarkets it operated, for the past three years.

It was cheaper than using a card system and prevented people clocking in and out for other staff members.

Mr Anderson said Ms Robinson's objection was the first major issue over the system that he knew of.

Ms Robinson said she considered the system an invasion of her privacy.

"It is just new devices coming into New Zealand that we don't really need."

Ms Harre said her National Distribution Union would follow up on other claims of the technology being introduced without staff consent.