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TAHLEQUAH — When city employees in Tahlequah arrive at work, they don't punch a card in a time clock to document their arrival.

It's something more high-tech. Hourly employees have their hands scanned, and their time is automatically registered in payroll software. Tahlequah, a city of about 14,460, has used biometric scanning to clock in workers since 2004.

"I love it,” said Sue Stacy, human resources director for the city. "It's cut my work in half.”

Tahlequah, about 70 miles east of Tulsa, is one of only a few government entities that use the high-tech method to track employees' time.

Four years ago, the city paid $29,260 for scanners, software and technical service that has made time cards obsolete. With the system, a record of employees' time comes straight to Stacy's computer.

In Oklahoma City, Perimeter Technology is adding biometric scanning devices for its computer room. The company rents space to businesses to house their computer servers.

Perimeter Technology maintains the servers.

"This allows us to track who comes in and who leaves,” said Brad Thomas, vice president of technology and a partner at Perimeter. "We'll have them scan their fingers and sign a pad below. This way we don't have to give everybody an ID.”

Thomas said he anticipates business use of biometric devices to increase.

"I think it could eliminate a lot of fraud if you can't clock somebody else in without their handprint,” Thomas said. "At some point, you'll probably have a hard time finding a standard time clock.”

While biometrics are still rare in government, scanning to track employees is growing throughout businesses.

The International Biometric Group, a consulting firm, estimates that $635 million worth of these high-tech devices were sold last year, and projects the industry will be worth more than $1 billion by 2011.

Manufacturers say the biometric devices improve efficiency and streamline payroll. And they help keep employees honest.

"It has helped people be more punctual,” Stacy said. "They know when they scan out that they have exactly an hour, and they usually stick to that.”

Not all employees are sold on the idea.

"They don't even have to hire someone to harass you anymore. The machine can do it for them,” said Ed Ott, executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO. "The palm print thing really grabs people as a step too far.”

Ingersoll Rand Security Technologies, a leading manufacturer of hand scanners based in Campbell, Calif., said it has sold at least 150,000 of the devices to Dunkin' Donuts and McDonald's franchises, Hilton hotels and to Marine Corps bases, which use them to track civilian hours.

Protests over using palm scanners to log employee time have been especially loud in New York, where officials are spending $410 million to install an automated attendance tracking system that may eventually be used by 160,000 city workers.

Scores of civil servants who are members of Local 375 of the Civil Service Technical Guild rallied Tuesday against a plan to add the city medical examiner's office to the list of 17 city agencies that already have the scanners in place.

In Tahlequah, there was some initial apprehension about the scanning devices, Stacy said, but employees soon got used to it.

Some 128 full-time employees and 49 part-time employees must use the scanners, located in seven separate city offices. Police and firefighters use it as well, Stacy said.

Another benefit of the system is curtailing fraud. For instance, New York's Department of Investigation charges city employees several times a year with taking unauthorized time off and falsifying timecards.

In Oklahoma, Tahlequah may be the only city using the technology. In Tulsa and Oklahoma City, employees use computers to log time.

Jon Mooney, Ingersoll Rand's general manger of biometrics, said the privacy concerns are unfounded. The hand scanners don't keep large databases of people's fingerprints — only a record of their hand shape, he said.

Still, union officials in New York said they are concerned that the machines could eventually be used not just to crack down on employees skipping work, but to nitpick honest workers .

"The bottom line is that these palm scanners are designed to exercise more control over the work force,” said Claude Fort, president of Local 375 in New York. "They aren't there for security purposes. It has nothing to do with productivity. ... It is about control, and that is what makes us nervous.”

Contributing: The Associated Press