Man wins $65K after being fired for refusing to be fingerprinted • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by adrianba » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

tomtimtall wrote: post #100

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 point of privacy laws are that your consent is required, and taking things from you under duress or coercion is not consent. This seems like your taking it a bit to the extreme. We both agree that for me to hire you to do a job I’m allowed to know who you are right? And that to identify the one person out of the world population I am allowed to keep a record with enough details that I can identify if a person i…

In most states in the United States, the notion of consent in the employment context is very different than, say, European privacy law. In European law, consent from an employee is almost impossible to obtain for any significant decision because of the inherent power imbalance in an employment relationship.

However, in the United States, where most employees are employed "at will," deciding to remain an employee is often considered to be consent. The law considers that you have choice: you choose to work there and consent, or you chose to not work there.

In this story, it appears that there is a separate law considering religious freedom and not privacy that requires employers to make some accommodations when not too burdensome.

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

#122

Post by amateurICEguy » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #44

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 cho…

Religious exemption is a proxy for an exemption of conscience. Which is something you should care about, unless you're perfectly tuned with the social zeitgeist.

And it's an excellent proxy since most people's consciences are formed by their religious beliefs (maybe not most HNers, but that's observational bias)

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

#123

Post by blunte » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:24 AM UTC

kome wrote: post #117

blunte wrote: post #99

I suspect this is an engineered situation/story/post. I suspect it is designed to drum up conflict and destabilize a society. Who really benefits from this is up for debate, and I won't speculate. That out of the way, fingerprints and faces are essentially public. Unless you wear a mask and gloves in public, you are visible. And even so, you'll shed some DNA material here and there. If you're so concerned about that,…

facial recognition technologies and fingerprinting are not normal and please, don't try to normalize them. biometric surveillance technologies (such as facial recognition) in public places should be limited, but also other form of biometric data — such as of faces but also of gait, fingerprints, DNA, voice, keystrokes and other biometric or behavioural signals. When monitored, we change behaviour and self-censor. Whe…

It is normal because it can be captured easily and silently. This is not like some device which you walk by which scratches you and steals your DNA. This is you being who you are, open for all to see, and being seen by people and cameras.

Here on HN we already know that when shopping in the US (and probably other countries) we are being monitored and facially tracked.

The only power imbalance is the power we give to people to use this information. You can theoretically vote against people who would use this information. Stop shopping in those places, stop walking in areas with known cameras, or wear an AI defeating mask. But this is the world we live in.

You already leave far more information in your internet use than you probably do by walking around town unless you are hyper vigilant.

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

#124

Post by Lammy » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:24 AM UTC

throwawaylinux wrote: post #106

Lammy wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I hope you're not fond of "the weekend" considering it used to take a religious exemption to get a day off work at all https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat "Oop, gotta go — it's Buchwuch!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tg58j-MoFic

That's not an argument.

Anything I don't like is an invalid argument

"The present-day concept of the relatively longer 'week-end' first arose in the industrial north of Britain in the early 19th century and was originally a voluntary arrangement between factory owners and workers allowing Saturday afternoon off from 2 pm on the basis that staff would be available for work sober and refreshed on Monday morning."

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

#125

Post by TOMDM » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:25 AM UTC

amateurICEguy wrote: post #122

throwawaylinux wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cho…

Religious exemption is a proxy for an exemption of conscience. Which is something you should care about, unless you're perfectly tuned with the social zeitgeist. And it's an excellent proxy since most people's consciences are formed by their religious beliefs (maybe not most HNers, but that's observational bias)

I think the person you're replying to is arguing all exemptions of conscience should be ubiquitous.

That we shouldn't have to rely on religion to fight that proxy battle for us.

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

#126

Post by blunte » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:25 AM UTC

blunte wrote: post #103

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…

Religion is as much bullshit as most political parties are. It's a few people trying to control and profit off masses. I we humans were half as rational and scientific as we believe ourselves, we would put energy into proving or disproving religious beliefs. But that is taboo, or rather it is off limits since so much of formerly ill gotten monies are now available to fight against such investigations.

Oh I've angered the sheep. My apologies.

You are being manipulated and controlled, and my commentary about this is not nearly as significant as the loss of your self worth in (willfully ignorantly) following your leaders.

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

#127

Post by avs733 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:27 AM UTC

mbg721 wrote: post #118

throwawaylinux wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cho…

Even if you don't personally believe in any religion, it's useful for a society to formally acknowledge an authority that's greater than the individuals to whom it gives political power.

> it's useful for a society to formally acknowledge an authority that's greater than the individuals to whom it gives political power.

yes, as you noted...that higher authority is society not god. The concept of god is an attempt to impute one's/a group's morals on a society

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

#128

Post by avs733 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #111

loceng wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Replace religious exemption with phrase deep conviction; relation to religion is only in use in policy as mass religion played a role to counter government, requiring at least some compromise for government to gain the most popular religions/organizations as allies, to align with.

That is the Dutch standard, “deep conviction”, but I see no merit in that either. One should not be given special privileges because one's convictions be “deep” which is, if anything, symptomatic of not basing them on prudence but on hysteria and emotion. It's also irrelevant for the company itself; if a company can reasonably accommodate a man whose convictions are deep, it can do so the same with anyone else for th…

I wholeheartedly agree. Where is the line in deep conviction?

can I steal if I had a deeply held religious conviction that it is appropriate?

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

#129

Post by ramblenode » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:28 AM UTC

version_five wrote: post #47

chuckee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 wro…

I find it helpful to assume an adversarial worldview to any service that collects or handles data.

You've mentioned some reasonable assumptions about how this system might work. But it's ultimately trust in a black box and a manufacturer with whom you have no personal or business relationship. You have no way of knowing if, at any time, your assumptions are still correct, or if one day in the future what's inside the box gets changed out.

What incentives would it take for that to happen? To my imagination, not much. E.g. the manufacturer thinks it can start a side business collecting and selling your full prints. There is certainly a market for them, so why not collect them? Maybe law enforcement sees these devices proliferating and convinces lawmakers to require that the prints be stored to support local investigations. Who would be against catching predators at your gym? Meanwhile the gym doesn't care because this isn't it's problem---and it gets a discount.

Things can change fast. If it seems possible, someone is probably thinking about how to do it.

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

#130

Post by programmarchy » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 2:30 AM UTC

TOMDM wrote: post #125

amateurICEguy wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Religious exemption is a proxy for an exemption of conscience. Which is something you should care about, unless you're perfectly tuned with the social zeitgeist. And it's an excellent proxy since most people's consciences are formed by their religious beliefs (maybe not most HNers, but that's observational bias)

I think the person you're replying to is arguing all exemptions of conscience should be ubiquitous. That we shouldn't have to rely on religion to fight that proxy battle for us.

For military service the term conscientious objector comes to mind which Wikipedia defines as “ [refusal] on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, or religion” which seems appropriate to me.