Confirming Who Is Clocking In
How the identity check at the time clock works, what it proves, and what happened to the photo it replaced.
A company can require its technicians to confirm who they are at the clock. That confirmation is done by the device — Face ID, Touch ID, the Android fingerprint sensor or Windows Hello — and no photograph is taken, sent or stored.
How it works
When a technician sets up their device, it creates a key that never leaves its secure enclave. At the clock, the device asks for the fingerprint, face or passcode it already uses to unlock, then signs a one-time code with that key. Seayora checks the signature and checks that the device really did verify the person. The biometric itself never leaves the handset and Seayora never receives an image of anybody.
What it proves, exactly
That the person who can unlock that enrolled device authorised this punch. It does not tell us whether that was a fingerprint, a face or the device passcode — the operating system does not report which, and Seayora does not claim to know. That is still a far stronger statement than the photo it replaced, which proved nothing at all.
What happened to the photo
The old setting made a technician photograph their face at every punch. The image was stored with the punch, the first one was kept as a “reference”, and nothing was ever compared to anything — there was no face-matching service behind it. It was an identity check in appearance only, and it accumulated face images, which several states treat as biometric data with a private right of action attached. The reference images have been erased and the capture removed.
Turning it on
- It ships OFF. Switching on a check before anybody has enrolled a device would lock a whole crew out of the clock.
- Set it to “flag” first: punches go through, and one without a confirmation is marked for review so you can see who still needs to enrol.
- Technicians enrol under Settings → Security → Passkeys. It takes about a minute.
- Move it to “block” once everybody is enrolled.
The three settings are the same three the geofence uses — off, flag, block — on purpose, so there is one vocabulary to learn.
Frequently asked questions
Does Seayora store my fingerprint or my face?
No. Neither ever leaves your device. Seayora stores a public key, which cannot be turned back into anything about you.
What if I get a new phone?
Enrol it the same way. The old device’s key stops working; you can remove it from Settings → Security → Passkeys.
Can I clock in on a shared van phone?
Only with your own enrolled device. A passkey belonging to somebody else is refused — that is the abuse the check exists to stop.
My device has no fingerprint reader.
The device passcode satisfies the check. What matters is that the device verified whoever is holding it, not which method it used.
Related guides
Related features and guides
- Compliance, Safety & 1099s for Contractors — Documentation. Setting what your business is required to hold, how Seayora grades your certificates, the safety incident log, and exporting 1099s for your accountant.
- Account Security: SSO, 2FA & Passkeys — Documentation. How to secure your Seayora account with single sign-on, two-factor authentication, device verification, passkeys (WebAuthn), and resetting a forgotten password.
- The Time Clock: Punches, Breaks, Overtime & Approval — Documentation. How technicians clock in and out against a job, what the geofence and photo rules do, how overtime is calculated, how an owner reviews and approves hours, and how to read the clock-in map.
- Timesheets & Labor Tracking — Feature. Technicians clock in and out against a job, hours flow into job costing and invoicing, and you see real labor cost per job instead of an estimate.
- Service Pro Identity Verification — Feature. Identity verification for service professionals plus background checks for your crew, so landlords can dispatch to your team with confidence.
- Mobile Field App & Push Notifications — Feature. A mobile-first field experience with push notifications for dispatch, so technicians get assignments, capture photos, and clock in without going back to an office.