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Privacy Entertainment

Disney World Collecting Fingerprints 539

Posted by Zonk from the they're-not-pins dept.
cvd6262 writes "Disney World is now requiring all visitors to have their index and middle fingers scanned to gain entrance to the park. This started for season pass holders, but is now required for everyone." From the article: "'I think it's a step in the wrong direction,' Civil Liberties Union spokesman George Crossley said. 'I think it is a step toward collection of personal information on people regardless of what Disney says.'"
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Disney World Collecting Fingerprints More

Disney World Collecting Fingerprints

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  • Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:09PM (#13078949)
    Way to RTFA:
    Disney officials said the finger scans do not take an actual fingerprint
    It's a hand geometry scanner, not a finger print scanner, and they have been doing this for YEARS.

    With that aside, WHO CARES. You cannot be uniquely identified by your hand geometry, it simply reduces the chance that you are using someone elses pass.

    • Parent is not troll, makes good point (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:25PM (#13079037)
      As a resident near Orlando, FL, I remember when Disney World first started using these biometric systems for Florida resident passholders. Prior to the finger scans, the passes had an ID photo which made the lines go much slower while a ticket attendant checked to make sure the picture matched you. The long and short of it is, the privacy concerns are no worse than having your picture taken was.

      Yeah, you probably can't buy a park hopper ticket and give it to a terrorist now, but you shouldn't be doing that anyway. :-P
      • I was going to post something about this being an outrage, and that if they want to verify someone's ID they should, well, ask them for ID. But I understand really that they already do that, and the fingerprint scans (Yes, I believe it probably scans and stores the actual fingerprint even if it only uses certain generic points for verification.) are just a way to do what they've always been doing, only faster. Cheaper. So cash-strapped Disney won't have to employ more human eyes to look at cards and move

        • Re:Parent is not troll, makes good point (Score:4, Interesting)

          by InvalidError ( 771317 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @10:58PM (#13079461)
          If there is zero checking on season passes, many people will setup pass pools and rent-a-pass style things... for pools, people put down a pass' worth in cash and get a pro-rata refund minus processing fees after an amount of time equivalent to a pass' validity period. For rent-a-pass, people would put down a safety deposit and the refund would be the pass's cost divided by the typical number of rentals per pass.

          In large pools and rent-a-pass networks, there could be something like one pass per hundred users since not everybody goes to WDL every day of the week for the full day.

          • Re:Parent is not troll, makes good point (Score:4, Interesting)

            by facelessnumber ( 613859 ) <drew&pittman,ws> on Friday July 15, 2005 @11:42PM (#13079633) Homepage
            not everybody goes to WDL every day of the week for the full day.

            Yes, but they could if they wanted to. They shouldn't sell shit like that if they're counting on it not being used. This is like a web hosting company overselling its resources, and counting on the fact that the customers won't all decide to use what they bought.

            This is their fault. Don't sell me a 6mbps cable modem on an "unlimited usage" plan and bitch at me or shut me off when I max it out. And so what if I share it with my neighbor? The bandwidth has been paid for. If my subscription is a net loss to you, then you should have sold me less or charged me more.

            If they want to reward and encourage people who go to Disney parks regularly, maybe they should do it differently. I don't buy some kind of personalized, reduced-rate sandwich card at Subway. They give me these little stamps, that I can redeem later when I have several of them. Maybe they could do some kind of "frequent flyer" style program. Hell, I don't know. There are a hundred other ways to do this that don't involve personal surveillance.

            And I'm not even saying that the passes should go unchecked. Maybe their current model is fine. There are other ways to check ID. Maybe instead of machines to scan your hand and get people through lines quicker, they should have more people looking at IDs. (And I mean looking. That's it. That's all that's neccessary. Not writing down what's on it or keying it into a database. That's right, more wage-earnging human beings. Disney can afford it.
    • +5 to the parent poster. Last I heard, they were less than 80% accurate (meaning one out of every five people couldn't get a good scan), and if you can't get your fingers to verify, the front entrance people will generally auto-rotate the turnstile and let you in anyway.

      I do think it's pretty cheesy that they require it of tickets other than seasonal/annual passes now, but I expect it's because A.) they're attempting to enforce the official non-transferability policy printed on the ticket to prevent peo

    • Re:Wrong. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by kg4gyt ( 799019 )
      Busch Gardens Williamsburg has been using the hand geometry scanner for years as well, cuts down on the cost to produce season passes.
    • One thing that the scanner vendors often say when confronted by privacy zealots is "Come on! It is impossible to reconstruct a real fingerprint from the stuff we scan, so your police-state fears are mathematically impossible." Turns out this is untrue [emergentchaos.com]

    • Re:Wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by saitoh ( 589746 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @10:37PM (#13079376) Homepage
      bingo, the other thing is, you dont associate your name with the individual pass, so they are only pinpointing "pass 106 has this finger structure with it", outside of that, they know that the first person who uses the pass has those fingers, not their name/age/gender/etc. Creditcard holder information could probably be gleaned, but not the actual person's info (at least not by this).

      I've been to Disney a batch, and one thing I noticed was that the park hopper passes arn't restricted like this, only single park passes and season passes (which makes sense on the seasonal ones so you cant loan out your pass and let the entire neighborhood go for free)

      To me the logic is to prevent/deter theft on the individual passes, or at least give that illusion (which seems to be a key element in America many times now). If you had to provide a name, or some other actual record, say an eye scan or an actual finger print, then yeah, I'd be a tad more concerned, but this I'll conceed in the proverbial war on privacy so that I may pick my key battles another day.

    • From out at the turnstiles... (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Have to post anonymously, here... I've got a lot of first-hand knowledge of the Disney admission control (turnstile) system, including the biometric readers that are the subject of this article. I'm basically going to make one longer post instead of trying to respond to misinformation throughout the comments.
      • You have a choice: use the biometrics or don't go to Walt Disney World. This is actually incorrect - you have a third option. Put your name on the pass and show valid identification. You never

  • Indeed, First Hand Account (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LiNKz ( 257629 ) * on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:10PM (#13078953) Homepage Journal
    I recently went there for the 4th of July (well, arrived around the second). After buying the tickets we decided to go to Disney Quest (Arcade).. We waited in line for quite awhile waiting for a number of people in front of us to do the whole two finger scan deal. Usually, it wouldn't work the first time, and they would need to do it over, and over.. One group in front of us couldn't get in because the girl's fingers didn't match her card. Nothing about how it wasn't a valid card, just the fingers didn't match.

    What I was told was the first time you use the system they take a shot of your fingers, this is used across the parks afterwards. My group of friends laughed when I raised an eyebrow at the fact that they were collecting fingerprints (though apparently not, generally it would be taken as that).. I was a bit annoyed at the fact that my prints were then on record with Disney. What exactly is the point? Keeping people from reusing the pass? Ok, that is fair, but it would have seemed better to use something like "It was used twice in minutes? That makes no sense!" Or perhaps "They haven't left the building yet, how has it been used elsewhere?"

    It just seems like they've put way too much work into making it harder.
    • I believe the point is that - if something happens - they have a better record of who came in, etc. I'm not saying it's worth what some people would call an "invasion of privacy" (since it's voluntary, I refuse to call it that), but I believe that's the point.

      What will be really interesting is how they use this to make more money. Undoubtedly, the installation of this system cost money, without any obvious profit as a result. Will they sell this database of prints? Will they track the size-shift in y

      • What will be really interesting is how they use this to make more money. Undoubtedly, the installation of this system cost money, without any obvious profit as a result.

        Without any obvious profit? How do you figure? The system is designed to stop people from using tickets that they didn't pay for. That results in either those people not going to the parks or those people _paying_ for tickets. Should I be allowed to give my families annual passes to another family so that Disney is cheated out of tho

      • What will be really interesting is how they use this to make more money. Undoubtedly, the installation of this system cost money, without any obvious profit as a result. Will they sell this database of prints? Will they track the size-shift in your prints and correlate it to age data? Will they track how often you come to the parks and extrapolate what attractions you're interested in?

        No, it's not that complex. They've already been using the system for years to prevent multiple people from using a sing
    • "Ok, that is fair, but it would have seemed better to use something like "It was used twice in minutes? That makes no sense!" Or perhaps "They haven't left the building yet, how has it been used elsewhere?"

      Those aren't the circumstances they're trying to put a stop to. What they're trying to do is prevent me from loaning you my season passport so you can get in for free.

    • Re:Indeed, First Hand Account (Score:5, Insightful)

      by lheal ( 86013 ) <lheal1999@yah[ ]com ['oo.' in gap]> on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:29PM (#13079056) Journal
      I have to hand it to you, you put your finger right on it. Disney has put way too much effort into making it harder to use their theme park.

      It's just like copy protection and other license-enforcement schemes: they maximize the profit/user ratio by decreasing the denominator instead of by increasing the numerator.

      Probably they will show a higher profit/user ratio, and the bean counters will declare a success. But they won't see the deadly effect on their image of treating their customers as criminals, nor will they ever see the profit they could have made by turning their energies to something park visitors would actually enjoy.
    • Keeping people from reusing the pass? Ok, that is fair, but it would have seemed better to use something like "It was used twice in minutes? That makes no sense!" Or perhaps "They haven't left the building yet, how has it been used elsewhere?"
      But that wouldn't stop me from giving my family annual passes to another family to use on a day my family and I don't plan on going to the park. The other family would get a free day at the Disny parks.
    • Ok, that is fair, but it would have seemed better to use something like "It was used twice in minutes? That makes no sense!" Or perhaps "They haven't left the building yet, how has it been used elsewhere?"

      They've already been doing that for years - if you attempt to use a single pass more than once in an hour, the system flags it and won't let you in without the attendant overriding the system.
    • The first thing I think about when I hear this story is Big Brother is finally here, 666 and the Rapture and all that tinfoil stuff.

      But the second is, how many times a day are those fingerprint scanners cleaned? Do I really want to stick my fingers in some machine that 5,000 snotty brats have just touched? Can you imagine what a disgusting petri dish of festering bio-germs from all over the world are growing on those things?

  • Two fingers is cheap (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jeremi ( 14640 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:11PM (#13078957) Homepage
    Last time I went, they wanted an arm and a leg.

  • I don't know (Score:2, Funny)

    by Xenkar ( 580240 )
    I sort of got mixed feelings about this. On one hand, we have to give up our biometrics. On the other, at least we don't have to get rectal exams on entry to the park.

  • They will see.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by WillRobinson ( 159226 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:13PM (#13078967) Journal
    My middle finger for sure.... before they see me.
  • ...either your civil liberties or your soul [sciencedaily.com], take your pick. (All on the taxpayer's dime, of course...)
  • Not sure about the index finger, but I'll certainly be giving Disney a chance to "scan" my middle finger after reading about this one.

  • Mixed Reaction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Staplerh ( 806722 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:15PM (#13078980) Homepage
    While agreeing with the ACLU that this is a step in the wrong direction, it is not as troubling as one thinks. We must keep it in mind that Disney is a private corporation and is able to set barriers to access to its parks. As long as they're not discriminating based on protected categories, their requirement for fingerprints must be protested with lack of patronage but little else. Ultimately, I think in overly security-concious America, we'll see that the public views this as a 'lesser evil' in the broader war on 'terror'. Indeed, they'll gladly surrender their fingerprints in order for the mirage of safety within Disney - perhaps they prefer it to a seemingly non-secure environment like ... oh Six Flags?

    The only problem I could see is if this applies to season-ticket or regular-ticket owners who bought their tickets under circumstances that did notinvolve fingerprinting and are now faced with fingerprinting or being refused access to the park.

    • Re:Mixed Reaction (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LurkerXXX ( 667952 )
      They need to let folks they are knowing this. If I had just shown up there and they had asked for my fingerprints I would refuse. But I would have already blown money for hotels and airfare to get there. I had no idea they were requiring this of season ticket holders or anyone before.

      I certainly won't be giving any of them my cash in the future.
    • There is one minor issue with that though - lets say burger king has pissed you off. "Don't eat at Burger King" - ok, that's reasonable, there's McDonalds, Wendy's, etc., you have the option to take your business elsewhere. There are other near-equivelent businesses to pick from.

      Problem is when someone is offering a unique service or product. (and with the disgraceful state of our IP management laws nowadays this is happening a lot) Now say Disney pisses you off. Where else do you plan on taking the k

    • Re:Mixed Reaction (Score:3, Informative)

      by MrPerfekt ( 414248 )
      This doesn't have anything to do with security. They're not taking your fingerprint at all, and even if they were I don't think they'd be comparing it against fingerprints of known terrorists.

      This is just a fuzzy form of authentication. Other people are bound to have the same hand measurements as you but it's unlikely they your friend or family member will have something close.

      They've been using this for a while now. The point of it is to prevent other people from using your ticket, even if you're not eve

    • Re:Mixed Reaction (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SydShamino ( 547793 ) on Saturday July 16, 2005 @12:44AM (#13079817)
      >> We must keep it in mind that Disney is a private corporation and is able to set barriers to access to its parks. As long as they're not discriminating based on protected categories, their requirement for fingerprints must be protested with lack of patronage but little else.

      Errr.. but the government can and should set limitations on what data companies can or cannot collect about us.

      What if Disney required your home address and social security number to enter their park? You know that some people would provide that, stupid as it may be. Instead, the government has laws that limit who can require your social security number.

      Or, what if Disney asked for a list of all medications you take before you enter the park. They could, but there are laws that limit the extent to which they can force you to comply, and the limit to which they could share information provided.

      In other words, the government can and should limit the abilites of private corporations to store and share personal information. That's one of the things I want it to do. They just don't do enough of it these days. And biometric data like fingerprints is one of the main things that should be protected.

      ---------

      All that said, supposedly this is just a hand shape scanner anyway, so this is moot.
  • This isn't happening at Disneyland...it's happening at various part of Disney WORLD. Yes, it's splitting hairs, but they are two different places.
  • Is there any identity associated with your prints, in this case? What if you want to pay for your admission in cash, and you left your wallet back in the hotel room?

    After all, the whole point of cash is to allow you to conduct anonymous financial transacations, is it not?

    Solomon Kevin Chang

  • Hey! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:23PM (#13079021)
    WTF is this Mickey Mouse bullshit?

  • The problem with biometrics... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sancho ( 17056 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:24PM (#13079029) Homepage
    The reason I don't like biometrics for identification is that it's virtually impossible to get a new identification should the old one be compromised. Worse, with fingerprints at least, you're leaving copies of your ID everywhere you go on everything you touch.

    Imagine someone gets ahold of your identity right now. Yes, it's going to be a pain, but you can get a new SSN, driver's license number, credit cards, etc. But what if a thief gets your fingerprint and creates a fake [www.ccc.de] ? How do you cancel that? Sure, in theory, a database of compromised biometrics could be created to prevent future unauthorized use, but now what about your legitimate use? If my fingerprints were compromised, would I no longer be allowed in to Disneyland? And in a more serious application, would I be denied credit? Be unable to use an ATM?
    • Cockprints.

    • And one more time (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday July 16, 2005 @02:28AM (#13080061)
      Seems like I go through this every time a biometric security thing comes up on /.

      There are three fundimental ways to identify yourself for access:

      Something you have.
      Something you know.
      Something you are.

      Something you have would be a physical token that can't be copied, at least not easily. A smartcard would be a good example. Someone has to physically steal it from you to use it, and you are likely to notice it's absence and alert the proper people. However the problem is that it can be stolen, or lost and thus used.

      Something you know would be a password or PIN code. It's an ID stored in your head. The advantage is you don't have to carry it around and can't lose it. The problem is if someone finds it out, they can use it without you ever knowing it's been compramised.

      Something you are is of course a physical trait. The good thing is that can't be stolen or anything. Problem is what you are changes, and can't be measured precisely anyhow and thus can be spoofed.

      Now, real security comes from using 2 or three of these. Since their problems are different, moving to more than one makes it much harder to compramise security. If all that is required to get on a system is a password, all an intruder needs to do is find out the password and they are in. If, however, it takes a password, smart card, and fingerprint they have to find out the password, steal the card, and obtain and make a fake finger, all before any of this is noticed and access can be revoked.

      So, in the case of Disneyland, they are maoving from 1-factor (somthing you have) to 2 (something you have and something you are). Even if someone steals your card, they have to build a fake hand (it's checking hand geometry, not fingerprints) and use it unnoticed. However the real aim is to prevent peopel from shaing their cards. It's easy to give away a token, much harder to make a convincing fake hand and not get caught.

      So biometrics are NOT worthless unless they are the only security. When used as an augmentation to one or both of the other methods of security they make it that much harder for someone unauthorized to gain access.

      • Re:And one more time (Score:3, Informative)

        by Tim C ( 15259 )
        So, in the case of Disneyland, they are maoving from 1-factor (somthing you have) to 2 (something you have and something you are). Even if someone steals your card, they have to build a fake hand (it's checking hand geometry, not fingerprints) and use it unnoticed. However the real aim is to prevent peopel from shaing their cards. It's easy to give away a token, much harder to make a convincing fake hand and not get caught.

        That doesn't answer the question - if your biometric identifier is compromised and

  • Just wait (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mfloy ( 899187 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:25PM (#13079036) Homepage
    Although it is clearly not fingerprints now, it makes me think like this is just a lead-up to actual fingerprinting. They get everyone use to the idea of biometrics at the park, well at the same time trying to keep privacy advocates slightly less angry.
  • They are not collecting fingerprinting. They are scanning just fingerPOINTS o finger geometric information. It can't be used to match a fingerprint in any database.
    Anyway, you can opt-out of being finger scanned, just showing any photo-ID where your name match the one printed in the ticket.
    I prefer this than being stamped with a UV sensitive ink.

    (English is not my first language!)
  • This story is about Walt Disney World in Florida. Disneyland, the park in California, still uses good old fashioned paper tickets.
  • ...being that he only has four fingers and all and hence no real middle finger.

  • Well I did my part: I clicked the "No, I don't like it" button on their survey. Twice!
  • What if you managed to get your index finger lopped off (or at least "slightly damaged") during your stay at the park?

    Or what if you happened to break your hand at work, got a huge settlement, and are now taking time off... will this thing recognize bits of your cast?

    Swelling due to a beesting or some allergy perhaps?

    In any case, I wonder what Disney's policy is for these sorts of unusual cases.

  • Last time I was there (Score:2, Informative)

    by jcnnghm ( 538570 )
    They would do the finger scan, and if it didn't work the first time the attendant would usually just manually override the scanner and let you in without much hassle. Also, the person I was with and I have similiar hand sizes, and flip-flopped passes all week. It almost certainly isn't a fingerprint scanner, just a very rough check.

    Additionally, it seemed that the biggest issue with the scanner was not getting your fingers all the way into the device. If they weren't pushed all the way in, with the webb
    • I was thinking about this and thinking that if you really objected to it, you could just screw around with the scanner and continaully move your fingers, not put your hand in far enough, plead that your fingers have a genetic defect that prevents them from going in far enough, and generally moan, wail, and bitch while tying up the line until they just let you in because there are 100 families with screaming kids behind you getting angry.

      I can see why they'd use it for season pass holders, however using it

  • Here's mine, take it (Score:5, Funny)

    by paiute ( 550198 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:38PM (#13079108)
    They can take my prints off of Sleeping Beauty's voluptuous ass. Seriously, that bitch got back.

  • They do it to allow a day pass to go in and out, without being used by multiple people.

    Seems like a nicely elegant solution to me!

  • Respond to the poll (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tetravus ( 79831 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @09:44PM (#13079142) Homepage
    There's a poll in the original story, a simple yes no maybe box with a submit button.
    If every /.'er responded it would be easy to push the poll in the direction of individual liberties and defense of privacy.

    Yes, I am aware it's not an official Disney poll but there's still a chance they'd pay attention to the results if they were overwhelmingly negative because the tv channel hosting the poll is neutral.
  • ... if someone has a better way of solving this identity card problem...

  • That's fine. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by derEikopf ( 624124 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @10:09PM (#13079249)
    Disney certainly has the right to do that. And we certainly have the right not to go to Disney. I'm sure Universal Studios will accept us with open arms.
    • I hear that. My girlfriend and I just moved from los angeles to south florida. Its a shame cuz we were planning on visiting disneyworld but to hell with that now.

    • Re:That's fine. (Score:2, Informative)

      by Boilermaker84 ( 896573 )
      Universal Studios and Sea World plan to do the same according to the local news. It's monkey see, monkey do with the three of them.

  • Simple Solution... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Friday July 15, 2005 @10:14PM (#13079270) Journal
    ...don't go to DisneyWorld. End of problem. It's a private park, not government or public property. Don't like their policies? Don't do business with them.

  • Let's fix the problem (Score:3)

    by It doesn't come easy ( 695416 ) * on Friday July 15, 2005 @10:30PM (#13079342) Journal
    All of you American citizens out there, listen up. Whether or not Disney is on the up and up about this, there's only one way to fix the problem once and for all. It's time for every good citizen to petition their political representitives for privacy laws that mean something. In my job, I deal with privacy laws from countries around the world. We plan what we have to do to comply with the local laws of each country. When we come to the US, more often than not it's "don't worry about it, the law doesn't mean a thing". Isn't it about time we make it mean something? Get politically active. It's the only way to make a difference. You can bet the RIAA, MPAA, Disney, Microsoft, even fair haired IBM are politically active.

    The US used to have a government that was for its citizens. It's about time we had one again.

  • Why not use another high tech method? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DaCool42 ( 525559 ) on Saturday July 16, 2005 @01:13PM (#13082228) Homepage
    Like, say, putting your picture on the pass.

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