The new sports center at the University of Northern British Columbia has recently introduced *mandatory* finger scanning for all members. Anyone opposed will be banned from accessing members only areas, however all students will still be charged a membership fee for the facility. There are NO CURRENT alternatives. This means that I am currently paying for membership to a facility that I cannot access.
The situation became openly coercive this morning when within half an hour of setting up our table protest the situation, a member of management walked by the table while swearing and insulting us.
This new policy is actually in violation of the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) as it is not essential for the running of the facility. Many facilities at larger institutions run quite smoothly without a biometric data system. A meeting with members of the sports center itself has not convinced us that proper action will be taken. We are in the process of gathering a petition, and working with student councils and on campus groups to gather support. We have also set up an online petition where you can voice your support for our struggle.
PLEASE help!!! Please pass on this information by any means you can, and feel free to borrow both from this post and the petition itself to post on other sites.
Please click here to sign the petition. It will only take a few seconds
bcteagirl
Hells yes I’ll sign. That’s not only insane, but it’s just freaking silly.
I’ll sign too, this is just wrong on so many levels! Good luck!
Thank you both so much!! I am very grateful. Spread the word!! 🙂
This is totally unecessary. I signed as well.
I dont’ see the big deal – if you had to swipe a card to get in, it would be essentially the same thing, but nobody would be getting up in arms about it. It’s simply a method of allowing access to only those people who are allowed. I’m sure it’s meant only as a security measure, to keep non-students/non-faculty (the general public) out.
I haven’t actually read the PIPA, but I’d love to see if someone can actually point out how this contravenes the Act. Otherwise, I’ll just chalk this up to paranoid knee-jerk fear mongering.
I am very happy to discuss this with you and get a chance to state our position more clearly.. the blog post was kept intentionally short and to the point. Here are a few main points from PIPA and I have starred the areas where the center has gone wrong:
The federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), the Alberta Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and the British Columbia Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) all share the same explicitly stated purpose: To govern the collection, use and disclosure of personal information by private sector organizations in a manner that recognizes both the right of the individual to have his or her personal information protected and the need of organizations to collect, use and disclose personal information for purposes that a reasonable person would consider appropriate.
An important principle in all three laws is that an organization may collect, use or disclose personal information only for a purpose that a reasonable person would consider appropriate in the circumstances. All of these laws apply to “organizations” and incorporate the following principles:
• Organizations are accountable for the protection of personal information under their control.
• *The purposes for which the personal information is being collected must be identified during or prior to the collection.
• Personal information may only be collected, used or disclosed by an organization with the knowledge and consent of the individual, with limited exceptions as specified in the legislation.
• **The collection of personal information is limited to what is necessary for the identified purposes and will be collected by fair and lawful means.
• Personal information must only be used and disclosed for the purposes for which it was collected, except with consent or as required by law. It can be retained only as long as it is necessary to fulfill those purposes.
• Personal information must be as accurate, complete and up-to-date as is necessary.
• Personal information must be protected by adequate safeguards.
• **Information about an organization’s privacy policies and practices must be readily available to individuals upon request.
• An individual has the right of access to personal information about himself or herself and has the right to seek correction. Both these rights are subject to some exceptions as specified in each statute.
• ***Organizations must provide the means for an individual to challenge an organization’s compliance of the above principles.
In order to be in accordance with the privacy act full and informed consent must be given during or prior to the submission of personal data. Right now the front desk staff are largely untrained and are unable to answer basic question about: How the data will be stored, where will it be stored, how long will it be stored, and how will the data be destroyed. So we do not have informed consent.
We also do not have free consent due to the fact that we are forced to buy a membership (If membership was optional, this would not be an issue). As well, students (I personally spoke with over 300 yesterday while hosting a table) have said that they have felt rushed, pushed and even coerced through the process. They have been treated as though any questioning of the new system was highly unusual and innappropriate. We have had instances where staff mocked students questioning the system in front of other staff members as well as anyone coming into the facility.. This is not a situation in where consent is being given freely.
The last point I have hilighted is that there must be the right to question the system. When the system was first introduced during the summer (When no one was there :P) they handed out a small sheet explaining biometric data with a ‘if you have questions please contact’ so and so on it. THey have now gone out of there way to remove the contact information from this sheet. So people are made to feel uncomfortable when they question the system at the front desk, and not given an alternate route to question the system. Please read our petition which is more detailed includes other problems we have with the system.
Thank you,
BCtea
I also need to mention that in accordance with the privacy laws, any information that is required must be vital for the running of the facility. Many larger institutions with similar set ups (Eg. univeristy and community) members (U of T, Dalhousie, U of C, Windsor, and Uvic are just examples) run smoothly without this information…