Yesterday I had to turn in a background check security form, along with another set of fingerprints. I also got fingerprinted when I got my ID badge. It was basically a is she-who-she-says-she-is form, in that it only went back 5 years. It was quite detailed however in those five years. I had to have someone who would verify that I was unemployed over the summer, as well as all the information on the places that I had worked.
Amusingly, I had filled out one section of the form wrong, and had to sit in the security office and recopy it. Since they had sent the form to me before I started work I had naturally not put my new job in the first slot of the employment history section. This was incorrect, and had to be corrected, before the form could be sent further up the chain. I had the other half dozen papers done correctly, of course including the fingerprint card, like a good little girl. And since I am basically a good little girl it should all turn out OK.
What amused me was that after getting officially fingerprinted, they handed it to me to take over to the other security office in the other building. I may be a good little girl, but I’m a good little girl with an evil mind. So I have a tendency to make note of holes in security systems, legal systems, etc. I never do anything bad, I just think “that’s odd…why put up such a big fence, if you are going to design a big hole in it right …there.” So for a concrete example…there is only one person in the organization who is allowed to put my fingerprints on paper. But then this piece of paper is just handed to me and (hopefully the same piece of paper) will show up as much as two weeks later in an envelope at the other security office in another building. This is what I was thinking about as I walked with my still wet fingerprint card to the other security office. Why do they need two in the first place? If they absolutely need two fingerprint cards, why didn’t they just make two sets of fingerprints when I came in to get my ID badge made up, and then send the extra one to the other office that does my security check? It would be so much more…well… secure.