Questions · Access control
Can I fit a fingerprint reader for my employees?
Not just like that. A fingerprint or a face, when they are used to identify somebody uniquely, are special category data under the GDPR, and for that category the starting point is prohibition: you have to find a specific exception that allows processing them, not a reasonable motive.
In the workplace the worker's consent does not work as a basis, because it is not considered freely given where there is a relationship of dependence. In 2023 the Agencia Española de Protección de Datos, Spain's data protection authority, published a position on the use of biometrics for attendance and access control that leaves very little room under current law: it takes the view that a rule with the rank of statute is needed to authorise that processing, and for ordinary time and attendance there is none.
That does not close the door on biometrics in every case —a high-risk area, with a written justification and a serious analysis behind it, is another conversation—, but it does close the door on fitting it because it is convenient or because it looks good in the offer. It is a decision taken with the data protection officer or with the legal advisers before buying readers, not after they are on the wall. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice.
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A written answer is enough to decide whether it interests you. To know whether it works at your site you have to see it on a real scene, with the image as it is and, on top of it, what the system understands from it. That is on the IRIS Neural website, which is the group's product.