Fashion company stops using fingerprint data for Hong Kong employees to clock on over privacy concerns
Privacy watchdog orders the fashion company to use a less intrusive method
A fashion company has stopped requiring employees to clock in and out using their fingerprints after the privacy commissioner stepped in.
Acting on a complaint by a former worker at Queenix (Asia), the office investigated the firm's use of a fingerprint recognition device that commissioner Allan Chiang Yam-wang described as "a vivid example of preferring the convenience and affordability of such devices to the neglect of the underlying privacy concerns".
The company said it used the technology to prevent theft and stop workers clocking in for each other.
But the office countered that the firm should use a less intrusive means to monitor staff attendance in a company that had few security concerns and just 20 employees.
It noted that previous thefts at the company were committed by staff and customers, which a fingerprint recognition device to stop unauthorised entry would not have prevented.
The office issued an enforcement notice directing Queenix to stop the collection of fingerprint data and to destroy all such records collected from past and current staff. The firm said in a written reply to the office on Monday that it had complied with the notice.