The committee has previously notified you about BNSF's attempts to gain access to your  biometric data.  We were informed that some of you may have granted them permission to do this without realizing it and followed up with a second email to remind members how they could rescind consent which was given accidentally.  This accidental consent could have happened in one of several different ways. For example, the BNSF “Workforce Hub” has a popup dialog that asks you to either accept or decline giving permission to BNSF to collect your biometric data.  Many of you may have inadvertently clicked "accept" and granted the BNSF permission to retain your data.

In some instances, supervisors have required employees to sign certain expectation forms or other documents usually under the guise of simply acknowledging receipt of them.  It is possible you may have signed a release among a stack of other papers, inadvertently granting BNSF authority over your biometric data.

Under the current policy, which was enacted to comply with recently passed State laws, BNSF must ask you to grant them permission to gather genetic, physiological, behavioral and other biological information.  For obvious reasons, we continue to strongly suggest you DO NOT grant the Carrier permission and if you have, that you immediately revoke such permission.

If you are unsure if you have given permission to BNSF to harvest your biometric data, you are strongly advised to notify them of your desire to revoke that permission just to be on the safe side.

Is it possible BNSF’s current desire to obtain such data is entirely on the up-and-up?  Sure it is, and that could very well be the case.  However, history with this Carrier would strongly suggest they will use that data for any nefarious purpose that may come to mind for them down the road.  There is no reason to risk it by giving them access to data that is not necessary for them to have access to.

To withdraw consent, send an email to dataprivacy@bnsf.com and state that you do not wish to grant BNSF permission to use your biometric data.