Fonterra maintenance team refuses to give thumbprints for timekeeping, citing privacy concerns

A maintenance team at one Fonterra site refused to provide their thumbprints for timekeeping. Photo / 123RF

A Fonterra employee who led the charge against workers scanning their thumbprints as a way of clocking into work cited an“intrusion of privacy” for refusing the new technology - but now they can be forced to comply.

Fonterra Brands New Zealand Ltd (FBNZ) went to the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) after Michael Lanigan and 30 other workers whom he spoke on behalf of, refused to provide their thumbprints for logging timesheets.

Lanigan has worked for the dairy giant since 2014 as a part of the maintenance team at its Takanini plant. He is also an elected delegate for the E tū union.

In 2016, FBNZ bought a timekeeping and attendance system using fingerprint scanning technology (FST) to introduce at the Takanini site in 2018.

But complications with the Covid pandemic and hygiene meant it wasn’t until March last year that Fonterra asked all its workers at the plant to begin using the system.

About 8000 Fonterra employees companywide are now using the technology and only the Takanini maintenance team are not, the recently released ERA decision stated.

The system required each employee to offer their fingerprint for electronic mapping to register them into the system. Each time they clocked in or out for work, their print would then be recognised.

FBNZ assured the ERA that the prints were not kept or stored in the system but were instantaneously converted into a mathematical representation using an algorithm.

The firm also provided evidence stating the system offered a very high level of protection for the security of an employee’s biometric data and the risk of reverse-engineering a fingerprint from binary data was extremely low.

However, Lanigan still refused to provide his fingerprint, telling his employer his privacy would be “intruded upon” and he didn’t believe he could be legally forced to comply.

Lanigan approached Fonterra on behalf of himself and 30 of his colleagues asking the firm to consider alternative ways of tracking their work hours.

But FBNZ maintained the FST system was the most practicable and effective.

Discussion between FBNZ and Lanigan took place for several months but a resolution could not be reached, resulting in FBNZ approaching the ERA.

The dairy firm hoped the authority would grant it the right to instruct workers to use the fingerprint technology.

ERA member Alastair Dumbleton found FBNZ had acted in good faith.

It provided its employees information about the system, met them to discuss the introduction of the system, and considered and responded to their feedback before the final decision to implement it was made.

“The authority finds that there was no failure in the consultation process and consultation was real and adequate. Neither is there any lack of good faith evident.”

Dumbleton was also satisfied with evidence that while alternative systems could be used for timekeeping, it did not make sense financially to offer a second solution for a relatively small group.

The ERA declared that FBNZ may instruct employees to use the system.