Use of biometric hand scanner leads to lawsuit for US coal mining company


The United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken legal action against a West Virginia mining company over the use of an attendance tracking system equipped with a biometric hand scanner, a media news report has revealed.

Use of biometric hand scanner leads to lawsuit for US coal mining company image 1

The Consolidation Coal Company installed the biometric system at the Robinson Run Mine for payroll purposes, prompting employees to electronically sign-in. However, when faced with the biometric logging in, an employee who had been with the company for 38 years said that his religious beliefs prohibited him from submitting to the scanning.

Although the employee tried to find an alternative to hand scanning (like submitting manual time and attendance logs or clocking in and out in the presence of his supervisor), the company was adamant about the use of the biometric time and attendance solution.

In the end, after not being able to get his point across, the employee decided to retire involuntarily rather than violate his beliefs and then filed an EEOC charge claiming religious discrimination, and the agency filed suit on his behalf alleging religious discrimination and failure to make religious accommodation.

Although the aforementioned firm might have tackled this issue in a more sensitive manner, especially taking into account the fact that the employee in question had been with the company for a very long time, the truth of the matter is that biometric hand scanners provide a superior level of security and reliability, especially when used for time and attendance data logging purposes.

The Tensor HSCAN3000 is one of the fastest biometric hand scanners on the market and works by scanning and recording a 3D image of the hand each time the employee punches. The hand’s size and the shape are used to check their identity against the existing database, providing a very good level of accuracy (without actually using any fingerprint scanning in the process).

Tensor’s HSCAN3000 hand scanner terminal employs red and green indicator lights in order to clearly notify the user of a positive or negative match. Plus, it grants fast and easy access to a series of very useful features, such as Edit-at-the-Clock Functions and Bell Schedules, which enable employers to set the day, time, and duration of a series of bells that can be programmed to signal the beginning or end of a shift, lunch, or break.

Additional important features worth mentioning include door control and the ability to connect multiple units at a single site via an Ethernet network connection.

If you’d like to find out more about the Tensor HSCAN3000 Hand Scanner Terminal, just contact our dedicated product team or book a demo of the product, our representatives will be more than happy to sort everything out for you.

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