Rail union ballots for strike over fingerprints
Hands off our dabs
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Eurostar cleaners are considering strike action over changes to working practises which mean they must provide fingerprints when they clock on or off.
Railway union RMT is calling on members working for Carlisle Cleaning Services which runs cleaning services at St Pancras on behalf of Eurostar to ballot to go on strike over the move.
RMT General Secretary Bob Crowe said: “The introduction of routine staff finger printing is totally outrageous and further proof that our surveillance society is spiraling out of control. Carlisle Group cannot be allowed to introduce these Orwellian working practices.”
Crowe said he'd written to both Eurostar and Carlisle asking for the machines to be removed. the union is recommending strike action.
Ballots will open 21 April and close 5 May. ®
COMMENTS
The old song...
Some one is whistling "Some day my prints will come."
About that brainwave scan, Geordie; are you SURE the fingerprints were the PM's?
Wrong target?
Local company had stuff go missing. Biometric entry/access system showed it was always the same cleaners in the building when things went missing. Cleaners fired, although no other evidence found. Stuff kept going missing, with a different set of cleaners being fingered. They got fired too.
After a couple more rounds, turns out it was the security guard in charge of taking said prints who was making copies of the fingerprints and using them. He was discovered through old fashioned methods of physical surveillance.
Which only goes to show that the technology doesn't solve the problem, it simply adds another layer of security theatre that allows people to waltz through and do what they want while using said technology to point the finger at someone else because machines are, fundamentally, very easy to fool.
ps: the cleaners were never re-hired, or apologized to. The security guard was never charged, because doing so would have embarrassed the people involved. The incident was not reported to the press for similar reasons. No, I'm not saying which company this was at. The company is now bankrupt, and the people involved scattered to the four winds.
@Richard, @ kain preacher
"What is needed is very simple - a human security person, checking photos on company ID card"
You have remebered that at least one batch of security guards at a Government department (MoD?) turned out to illegals with no valid work permit? And of course that would be another NPE (Non Productive Employee. A fair term for some managers as well) they'd have to pay.
"If this goes through can't the plod request the entire data base ?"
Not if the IPS bags it first. With NIR implementation costs rising they are looking for any way to save money.
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