Can an employer demand biometric information from its employees?
The need for greater and more stringent security measures in the business environment, has seen the introduction of sophisticated control and security systems. These systems increasingly make use of biometric information such as fingerprinting, blood typing, voice recognition, retinal scanning etc. as unique personal identifiers allowing access to/egress from physical locations, programmes, systems or networks. For an employer to implement such control measures, biometric information must be collected from employees, raising the question as to whether employees can be forced to provide biometric information, under which circumstances and for what purposes.