Marketplace Tech

Can your workplace store your fingerprint or facial scan data?

10.19.2022 - By MarketplacePlay

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They have our Social Security numbers and probably our Amazon shopping lists. But should employers be collecting data on, say, our fingerprints, voices or retinas? After all, these things are unique physical identifiers. And if they were somehow stolen in a data breach, they’re not easily changed like a password. A legal case in Illinois provided one of the first tests to a state law that protects this type of data — the Biometric Information Privacy Act, or BIPA. Last week 45,000 truck drivers won their suit against BNSF Railway for collecting their fingerprints without consent. Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino recently spoke with Alan Butler, executive director and president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research organization. He said Illinois is at the forefront of a growing movement to regulate biometric data.

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