Fingerprint-protest worker fired

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

David Barnes has forfeited his job at an Auckland printing works rather than become a "marked commodity" by surrendering his fingerprints to his employer.

"Where does it all end?" he said yesterday of his dismissal as a maintenance engineer for PMP Print in Wiri.

"Ultimately we'll be no more than producers and consumers in an extremely regulated Big Brother society that I don't wish to be part of."

Mr Barnes, 52, was sacked last month for alleged serious misconduct for refusing to allow his fingerprints to be scanned into a machine for identification when clocking on and off.

He said this would have violated his religious and ethical beliefs.

About 30 per cent of the 160 or so staff at the site had been similarly reluctant to provide their prints, he said. But although another man quit, the rest gave in after what he claimed was merely token resistance by their union, of which he is not a member.

Australian-owned PMP told the Employment Relations Authority in September it needed the technology to combat false time claims, but Mr Barnes said he always arrived well before starting time.

Site manager Lee Rakiraki said Mr Barnes was dismissed for refusing a lawful and reasonable request. The authority endorsed this before the company delivered its final ultimatum.

He refused any other comment.

Importer Lauranka New Zealand says it has supplied about 180 scanners to firms throughout the country in the past 15 months, including many supermarkets, but these have an option for simple PIN numbers rather than prints if anyone is unwilling or unable to supply them.

Mr Barnes, who also refuses to use credit cards, said he was never offered that option.

He says he cannot as a jobless sole parent afford to challenge his dismissal in court, but has lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission alleging discrimination on the basis of his religious beliefs.

He accused the employment authority of setting a dangerous precedent that redefined the working relationship.

"Your employer used to be able to make demands on your time only when you were at work, but now they can hold biometric information on you 24 hours a day - we are no longer employees and employers, but slaves and masters."

Authority member Dzintra King agreed in her decision with case notes from the Privacy Commissioner that finger-scanning technology did not breach privacy principles as it merely stored mathematical data rather than actual prints.

The notes were issued last year after the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union cited the Privacy Act and Bill of Rights Act in opposing PMP's use of the technology.

Mr Barnes told Dr King that allowing biometric information to be taken would stamp him with "the Mark of the Beast", but she questioned the consistency of this claim against a concession by him that he would let the police take his fingerprints.

She said that if he were sincere in believing he risked losing his place in the biblical Rapture, or second coming of Christ, he would not have made such a concession.

But Mr Barnes told the Herald this was hypothetical as he had never received so much as a speeding ticket.

Green MP Keith Locke, who has accused the United States of wanting to build an international database on the world's citizens by fingerprinting him and other passengers at airport transit lounges, said he was shocked by the dismissal.

He said the use of biometric information for purposes such as time-keeping or even issuing library books, as happens at one Auckland school, was yet another move towards a surveillance society.

"What if an employer wants to use fingerprints to find out how many seconds staff spend in the toilet?"

Engineers' union lawyer Tony Wilton said the union was unhappy that firms were using prints for non-essentials and suggested they be reserved for purposes such as high-security access.

But he said there was little it could do to stop the practice, and believed being fingerprinted was less demeaning than having to urinate in a bottle in workplace drug-tests.

Business New Zealand spokeswoman Kathryn Asare said the technology was attractive to employers because it stopped staff from clocking in for one another.

Scanning workers

* An importer has supplied about 180 scanners to firms throughout the country in the past 15 months.

* These have an option for simple PIN numbers rather than prints if anyone is unwilling or unable to supply them.