- The Berri-Otxoak social exclusion platform has taken action to denounce the cuts and bad practices of the Basque Employment Service.
On Thursday, Olentzero appeared at the Lanbide Cruces office to report on the situation in Berri-Otxoak. The complaint with the action had a particular impact on the poor practice of collecting biometric data from users who make representations in the office.
The Cruces office, together with nine other Lanbide offices, has participated in a pilot experiment based on the collection of users’ biometric data. The experiment was launched in May and has lasted six months. In this section, the ten fingerprints and portraits corresponding to a total of 9,005 people have been retrieved.
Members of the Berri-Otxoak platform have stressed that data collection does not have any legal coverage. However, “the Basque Government’s Employment and Social Affairs Council plans to implement it massively from March in the 43 offices in Lanbide.”
According to the platform, “Lanbide itself points out that there are no studies on the risk or use that the collection of these biometric data may have”. In fact, they have warned that Lanbide does not take over the custody of data, but that it is the company lzenpe S.A which is storing the information of the users.
As explained by the platform, a user of the Lanbide office in Cruces has filed a complaint about these facts. Consequently, the Basque Data Protection Agency has had to intervene, following the dossier it received from the Basque Data Protection Agency.
Reflection on fingerprint identification
From the Berri-Otxoak platform, they have put on the table some points that they found relevant for the implementation of user identification by fingerprint.
The platform states that the European Union requires a risk investigation and an impact assessment before collecting biometric data, something that Lanbide has not carried out. Furthermore, according to the European Union, the use of biometric data has a major impact on human dignity and is prohibited by the general principle.
In addition, they stressed that the collection of data by Lanbide "is not what the individuals have freely allowed".