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from the I'm-sure-they'll-delete-the-records-when-they're-no-longer-needed dept.
JPMorgan requires staff to hand over biometric data to access new headquarters New York bank is imposing eye and fingerprint scans amid heightened security concerns at corporate offices
JPMorgan Chase has told staff moving into the US bank's new multibillion-dollar Manhattan headquarters they must share their biometric data to access the building, overriding a prior plan for voluntary enrolment.
Employees who have started work at its 270 Park Avenue skyscraper since August have received emails saying biometric access is "required", according to a communication seen by the Financial Times. This allows people to scan their fingerprints or eye instead of ID badges to get through the lobby security gates.
[...] Dave Komendat, chief security officer at Corporate Security Advisors, said biometrics had been used for decades at higher-security areas, such as government installations and data centres, but putting them in commercial buildings for large numbers of people would be used at a new and larger scale.
https://www.ft.com/content/d5351d3d-d64f-4a90-a3da-d1ef8e8bea66
https://archive.ph/YCV85
[Ed. question: Would this be a deal breaker for any of you for joining or continuing to work at the company?]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fen on Monday October 20, @09:51AM (2 children)
I worked for a major bank at a satellite site. A lot of people had most of their team on the other coast. They faced an hour commute to sit alone in an office a scramble for quiet rooms. There was some talk about sharing ID cards to fulfill the return-to-work requirements.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday October 21, @03:43PM (1 child)
If all of you kids would have said "I ain't goin' back" and all held out for sane policies, the sane policies would have happened. But of course, that's impossible for working people.
But when they demand biometric data is when to flip them the bird and find another job, even if it pays less.
Mad at your neighbors? Join ICE, $50,000 signing bonus and a LICENSE TO MURDER!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 21, @04:50PM
Yes, workers generally are collectively better off when enough of them stand up for their rights and tell the brass to f--- right off when they pull moves like this.
But:
1. It's a lot easier to do collective moves like that when you have some kind of organization of all the workers for a business that does not include upper management already in place, so you can more easily plan what you're doing and address. There has been at least a century's worth of propaganda that's convinced a lot of people, especially those with college degrees who wear collared button-down shirts and slacks to work, that they don't need those kinds of organizations, or that having them would do more harm than good. Call this kind of organization an "onion" or something like that.
2. The job market is wildly screwed up right now, especially for white-collar types. Somewhere between 30-50% of the jobs on most job boards don't really exist, and many are just resume collectors that they can feed into AI bots. There are other AI bots that are filtering out resumes for numerous secret reasons, and other AI bots flooding these jobs with fake CVs. Some "interviews" aren't real interviews with a person, either, just more bot data mining. It's almost entirely a "who you know" system, which is hard if not impossible for someone to navigate if they're starting their careers. So "just get another job" is easier said than done.
3. Thanks to the immigration crackdowns, anyone in the US under H1B and similar programs is stuck between "hang onto your current job" and "move back to the country they came from", even if they've been living in the US for a decade and have a spouse and kids and a life, which means they will put up with a lot more to hang onto their current job. This is of course part of why management loves having people under these programs.
4. Most companies, especially larger companies, can manage without a bunch of employees for longer than most people can do without a paycheck. That fundamental threat of starvation and homelessness underlies pretty much all mistreatment of employees by managers, in every profession.
It's also worth noting that management has been as of late doing these kinds of things as "stealth layoffs". They create the policy knowing full well that a bunch of people will quit over it. And they will probably be the more experienced, senior level, more expensive staff. Then they can hire junior-level people for less money to replace the senior-level people they lost. And sure, you might think "but you lost the knowledge of the senior-level people too", but that's not considered important to beancounters.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin