The Full Bench of the Fair Work Commission this week held that
an employee was unfairly dismissed for refusing to follow the
employee's direction to log in and out of work using a
fingerprint scanner, on the grounds that this was not a 'valid
reason' for dismissal. Typically, employers are able to dismiss
an employee who fails to follow a lawful and reasonable direction.
The effect of this decision, therefore, is that an employer's
direction to an employee to provide biometric data, in the absence
of the employee's consent, is not lawful and reasonable.
Jeremy Lee was an employee of Superior Wood Pty Ltd, which
operates two sawmills in Queensland. At the end of 2017, Superior
Wood sought to implement electronic fingerprint scanning, to
replace hard copy attendance records which involved each employee
signing in and out in a book. After significant consultation with
the employees, and a trial period, the fingerprint scanning was
introduced in January 2018, and the
