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Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

startribune.com

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Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#41

Post by smogcutter »

sodality2 wrote: post #14
smogcutter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a lawyer, but seems from the outside that they key thing is that another employee did get an alternate background check. So being told no accommodations are available is BS. Seems like a pretty straightforward argument from there to saying the employee is being discriminated against for a sincerely held religious belief. The belief itself being fringe hogwash is irrelevant. Plus the employee offering to accept an…

Ah, must've skimmed past that part! yeah, that seems pretty clear-cut. Thanks!

On the other hand, afaik the mark of the beast is something placed/written on you by the antichrist. Whereas your fingerprints, are, like, part of your body. So even if you grant that the mark of the beast is a thing people believe in this doesn’t make much sense.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#42

Post by gnopgnip »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #34
_3u10 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s orthogonal to court, the standard is not whether others hold that belief but whether the belief is sincerely held. Given that he identifies as Christian and whatever he believes got a ruling in his favor I would say that it’s an “actual” belief.

How could a court possibly establish whether or not a belief is sincerely held? The whole thing is a farce.

The same way the courts decide whether or not someone committed a crime or any other issue. The judge or jury ultimately decides the facts based on what is presented.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#44

Post by throwawaylinux »

motohagiography wrote: post #24

Good. Religious exemptions are pragmatic canaries for state overreach. People are not livestock, even if states and employers like to treat them that way. The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation, it represents a very real line between the individual and group and whether one is a citizen or mere property. This is the marking issue with biometrics. Are you a being with agency, or are yo…

Religious exemptions shouldn't be a thing though. I should not get more protections or rights in any way than another citizen because I happen to have or claim different beliefs than them.

I'm not talking about being discriminated against because of religious beliefs, mind you. I'm talking about the right to do or refuse something (e.g., refuse a fingerprint or, or refuse to serve alcohol) and protection of those choices.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#45

Post by iammisc »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #31
motohagiography wrote: post #24

Good. Religious exemptions are pragmatic canaries for state overreach. People are not livestock, even if states and employers like to treat them that way. The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation, it represents a very real line between the individual and group and whether one is a citizen or mere property. This is the marking issue with biometrics. Are you a being with agency, or are yo…

> The idea of a religious exemption isn't just some pastafarian variation Anyone’s assumptions or thoughts can qualify as a religion. At least for any consistent and useful definition of religion.

And in the united states it does. A religion is any deeply held belief. That's the only standard.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#46

Post by iammisc »

sodality2 wrote: post #2

"Harrington informed APRS in July 2017 that having his fingerprints captured was contrary to his 'sincerely held religious belief.'" Good on him, but I thought they actually checked up on the whole "religious beliefs" thing? Is this an actual Christian belief? Edit: "Plaintiff, a devout Christian, informed AST that the Book of Revelation prohibits the “mark of the devil” which she believed included fingerprinting and…

The government will not and can not look into the provenance of your belief.

Whether or not this is an 'actual christian belief' is not something the federal or state government can comment on.

If the man holds it sincerely then the state must take him at his word.

Edit: why am I being down voted ...? This is the accepted legal standard

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#47

Post by version_five »

chuckee wrote: post #40
version_five wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did it piss you off? Is the fingerprint being used for something other than access? Is it even stored in a format that would allow it to be used for something else? I'm pretty privacy and personal freedom conscious- for example I wouldn't go anywhere that made me scan a QR code or use an app. But I can't think of any concern I have with a private business using my fingerprint as an access token, unless I'm also s…

> unless I'm also signing that they can use it for other stuff. I find your trust in the strength of a terms of service agreement baffling. If they get a court order it doesn't matter what you allowed them to do with it. And even without a court order, if they used your fingerprint in ways you didn't allow, how would you know? They wouldn't be the first company to break the law when they think they can get away with…

The biggest reason I don't care is that I doubt they are asking for or recording something from which they can reconstruct my fingerprint. They are reading it into a proprietary scanner run by a local gym (this is an assumption, but I'll bet its true). The scanner has some proprietary code that checks if my fingerprint matches the next time. It can't export a fingerprint file, it cant share it with anyone. If I'm wrong, and they are actually scanning some portable fingerprint image that is readily used either to provide and example for comparison to others, or so generate a fingerprint, then your comment applies. But my guess is it's just a local gym with a scanner and a database that exists in the proprietary scanner software.

I'd be much more concerned about giving my fingerprint to apple or lenovo or whatever device provider.

Incidentally, I could be entirely wrong. For example, if there is some Fingerprint-as-a-service company the gym uses that lets you create a portable ID based on your fingerprint, I would refuse.

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#48

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

smogcutter wrote: post #41
sodality2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, must've skimmed past that part! yeah, that seems pretty clear-cut. Thanks!

On the other hand, afaik the mark of the beast is something placed/written on you by the antichrist. Whereas your fingerprints, are, like, part of your body. So even if you grant that the mark of the beast is a thing people believe in this doesn’t make much sense.

I suppose that means that a sincerely held religious belief need not actually be a tenet of the religion you follow, so long as you believe it, and believe it is related to your religion. Personally this seems like a gray area that is ripe for abuse. But I guess until such abuse becomes much more commonplace, we will not see a reform in the degree to which religious beliefs are favored by the courts.

On the other hand, if such abuse becomes more prominent and causes more interference with how business gets done, then you could imagine a scenario where one-off beliefs are much less favored, and the state has to get involved in figuring out whether the belief is actually religious, or if it's just some random thing you believe that you attach religious significance to. (Distinguishing minority religious views from this will be extremely difficult.)

Re: Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted

#50

Post by nullc »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #32
latenightcoding wrote: post #6

most of my family agreed to get fingerprinted to get free gym membership (family friend runs the gym and you scan your thumb at the door for access). It pissed me off so much.

Modern fingerprint reader systems don’t capture and store an entire fingerprint. They use algorithms that extract a number of features from the print. You can’t extract someone’s fingerprint from a gym’s fingerprint scanning system and run it through a background check database, for example. If you’re concerned about giving up identifiable data points, the photo on your gym membership account is more likely to be usa…

> You can’t extract someone’s fingerprint from a gym’s fingerprint scanning system and run it through a background check database, for example.

Until they swap out the reader at the door for one that also saves fingerprint images (if the one there doesn't support that already!).

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