The everyday use of biometric technology in contemporary society is nothing new.

We live in a world where we regularly use fingerprint recognition for home security, facial recognition to open our phones and voice recognition to ask Siri to spice up a party by playing the latest Taylor Swift tune.  Despite the significant advancements and prevalence of biometric technology in everyday society, the legality of the use of biometric fingerprint technology in the workplace has been given a thumbs down in a recent case.

A recent Fair Work Commission Full Bench decision has shed light on the obligations and risks associated with the use of biometric technology by employers.  In the first Full Bench decision considering an employee’s refusal to provide biometric data through fingerprint scanning, it was held in Jeremy Lee v Superior Wood Pty Ltd t/a Superior Wood [2019] FWCFB 2946 (1 May 2019) that directing an employee to provide fingerprint data, in circumstances where the employee did not consent to that collection, was not lawful.

The decision is important for employers to consider as it raises questions around data collection, data policies, the storage of data and whether the refusal to provide sensitive information is a valid reason for dismissal.