Big Brother takes a hit: Serco’s “face-fancy” approach curtailed by the UK data watchdog
In the latest update from the “we had no idea they were even looking!” department, Serco Leisure has landed in trouble for attempting to check work attendance through facial recognition and fingerprint tech. The United Kingdom’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) popped a metaphorical dunce cap on Serco’s head, warning them to rack off with running their beady tech eyes over unknowing employees.
Key Points:
- Apparently, the phrase “Keeping an eye on you” evolved into a whole new dimension at UK’s Serco Leisure. The company took monitoring staff attendance to sci-fi levels by employing facial recognition technology and fingerprint scanning at their outlets.
- The eagle-eyed folks at the ICO caught this privacy breach, filing a stern “I see what you did there” report. They found Serco Leisure guilty of unlawfully processing the biometric data of over 2,000 employees across 38 centres.
- Faced with this damning revelation, the ICO has reprimanded Serco Leisure. The company has been ordered to stop using these invasive technologies for the purpose of staff attendance tracking.
Final Thoughts:
Ah, technology! One minute, it’s helping us stream our favourite content on 5G, the next, it’s nabbing us for sleeping in and missing that Monday morning meeting. While I’m all for AI making our lives easier, using it for body-snatcher level surveillance at work is definitely not on the friendly robot agenda. So here’s a friendly reminder for every company with a tech-fancy: Invasion of privacy? Not cool, dudes. Not cool. Also, employees: If the coffee machine starts asking for your fingerprint, maybe it’s time to look for a new job. Trust me; no cup of coffee is worth that kind of scrutiny.
As part of this experiment I would like to give credit where credit is due. If you enjoy these, please take a moment to read the original article:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/23/serco-ordered-to-stop-using-facial-recognition-technology-to-monitor-staff-leisure-centres-biometric-data
Blog Title
AI: gpt-3.5-turbo-0125: chatcmpl-8vSPUOh7zbpD1x1MMZ8dajx0A3GAH
Instruction: “You are an AI blog title generator. Create a catchy and concise title for the blog post that is catchy and optimized for search engines. Remove all html in the response and do not use quotes. Please do not use words that are unsafe to process in Dall-E image AI.”
Prompt: Content Summary of text from above.
Response: Serco Leisure Caught Processing Staff Biometric Data Unlawfully
Image Description
AIgpt-4-0613:chatcmpl-8vSPZt6sitvm2mIh0QP2MT8WIQpyA
Instruction: “You are a helpful assistant that creates unique images based on article titles. Create a brief visual description of what an image would look like for this title. Please pick a style of art from the following: Futurism, Impressionism, Romanticism, or Realism, be sure to consider the image should reflect an AI Robot Pirate theme during the Golden Age of Pirates.”
Prompt: The image portrays a scene in the style of Realism. It’s set in a dimly lit 18th-century ship cabin, with nostalgic wooden walls, maps, a globe, and navigational tools scattered around. In the center, an AI Robot Pirate, designed in a steampunk style with parts like old clocks, cogs, gears, and metals from the Golden Age of Pirates, is intently analyzing some sort of futuristic biometric device. This device is glowing with holographic personal data, like fingerprints and retinal scans, illustrating the unlawful processing of information. The robot pirate’s metallic hand is reaching towards the data, whilst its eyes glow with the same hue, suggesting an unallowed transfer of sensitive data.
Response: Serco Leisure Caught Processing Staff Biometric Data Unlawfully
