Slashdot Mirror
Disney World Collecting Fingerprints
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.'"
Don't like Disney's policies? Take your business elsewhere.
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.
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? Y
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.
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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.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
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 ? 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?
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.
Voice your opinion!
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.
:-P
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.
I shouldn't reply, but you had me nodding my head in sympathetic agreement, until your last paragraph. Now, I'm thinking: wtf dude?
Secure it?? They will sell it. Or government will force them to release ie.
Do you remember the airlines after 9/11. They were forced to send all their passengers data to the government. The airlines denied it. Then it came out as true. Then the airlines admitied it.
Can anyone imagine seeing a mom, pushing her 6 year old daughter and saying "honey, scan your hand so we can see Mickey".
Did anyone see the slashdot story a month ago about the Naperville library that requires fingerprints to use their library?
Or what about Boston and the thousands of cameras they put up? Then Chicago and the 3,000 cameras they put up?
When will everyone admit this is a police state? When you are not allowed to quit your job? When you are told you must work and have no overtime. When you have no health insurance. When the courts take away your rights, that your grandparents had? WHEN? WHEN!!!
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Disney is one of the most hipocritical and anti-freedom companies in existance. I for one would not visit their parks for any reason, but this is simply ridiculous.
I fucking hate Disney for what they have done to our laws. I hate them for using this hand scanner. They are bastards.
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What's needed is for the people to get together and (in a nice way) let congress know how they feel about these things. While I admit that that's not likely to happen, your histrionics make it seem like only those on the lunatic (sorry) fringe care about these things.
Shut up. And stop drooling.
Don't like it, don't go to Disneyland.
Yeah, sure. Okay, it's creepy, but hey, it's just Disneyland. I don't have to go there. And tomorrow Blockbuster Video starts requiring a scan to rent a video, but hey, it's just video-rental. Soon the Mobil gas-station starts using biometrics for their speedpass. Then maybe the bank wants your prints if you want to open account. And if the government starts requiring it first for their services and later legislates it as a requirement for other businesses, well, it's not as if it wasn't being used everywhere already, right?
I prefer to stop these things BEFORE they become the accepted norm.
You know, you had a reasonable (if somewhat rambling) argument in your post right up until the last sentance...
...why, because the Iraq war is unjustified, or because the cops stole your fingerprints? I have no idea where you live but it is irrelevant. I know people born and bred in my country who would also recommend nuking cities as a political tool.
"I hope a nuke goes off in NYC, or should I say NYX."
Your kind are of no particular colour, you cover the spectrum of politcs and privlage. You need not worry about Disney or the cops, you are easy to recognise from your advocacy of a "final solution" that makes the rest of us want to puke!
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Idiots chirping 'don't like it don't use it' in a gay voice just don't understand.
/. about a small town gym was requiring fingerprints. That's just plain silly.
When someone like Disney do something like this, it sets a very bad precident. Other smaller companies then think they need to do be doing it for some reason. It wasn't that long ago I was reading on
It's a current psycological fad that has come as a result of the War against Terror(TM) and people just lap it up unquestionably and think it's 'necessary'. It's also because the equiptment involved has become a lot cheaper and easier to deploy.
The real problem is people dont' question it. Even the staff don't really know why they are doing it.
That is bad enough before you even get to the repurcussions of enormous databases of physical individuals access to certain facilities, which in the case of Disney are probably being heavily tracked and probably include the tracking of children too.
I think in time, this kind of bs may actually go away as a silly fad. But it may be a while before it does.
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.
No you haven't. Because if you had been to disney two months ago, you would have had to do this.
I was actually there three months ago and it really isn't that big a deal, so settle down. They are NOT taking finger prints. They're basically measuring the distances between your knuckles.
Plus, it doesn't work all that well. They had to reset my wife's every other time she tried to enter a park because it failed to identify her. And they did reset it, everytime, without any questions.
When will everyone admit this is a police state?
Hmm. For living in a police state, you sure are able to talk all you want about the evilness of the police state.
As for the article in question: if a private company wants to use a hand-geometry scanner to help eliminate abuse of their passes, well, that's their business. Just take the kids to one of those Linux-powered Open Source Anarchyworld Amusement Parks I've been hearing so much about.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
It's hard for me to be a libertarian and stand by my principles when I hear news like this, but I have to stick to my guns, even when I fervently personally disagree with something.
Disney is not a part of your government. They are free to exist as a theme park, just as Six Flags and Alton Towers (in the UK) are. They are entitled to set whichever requirements they like for you to enter their park. Just as you are allowed to place retina scanners at the front door of your house if you so please.
I believe in monopoly regulation, so as long as Disney is not the ONLY theme park available (and Windows isn't the only usable OS), they are free to set their own rules, on their own property.
I also believe, however, that they must disclose what they will be doing with any information they collect, so that you can be informed in your decision to surrender or not surrender your finger-scans and such.
Using your Microsoft example, they currently don't quite have a monopoly on the desktop OS market. There are 2 usable alternatives (*nix and MacOS), and plenty of other hobby OSes that work to an extent. If they set DRM requirements for music and videos, etc. and the market starts to play along, producing hardware that supports this and cripples other OSes, then they develop a monopoly. This is not healthy for the market and really takes away from personal choice of OS, so it must be stopped. That is the only time I support public (government) intervention into such corporate affairs.
You see what I mean? Right now, you can always take the kids to Six Flags if you don't like Disney's rules. You can always petition Disney to change as well.
Dude, this is called arbitration. A buys something, but doesn't use it up, so A sells it to B. Disney hasn't lost anything - they were already paid for the days A couldn't use.
If they prevent B from buying A's unused tickets and force B to buy a new ticket that means they're double dipping.
Not a moral thing to do. But of course, in the good old USA, this is not only legal, it's the thing to do. Profits uber alles.
What is the #1 question a judges used when determining bail? Does the person have a job? Is that person making someone else a profit? What the fuck does that have to do with if a person is guilty?
So violent and yet so ignorant, perfect terrorist material I guess. Bail is not guilt nor innocent, it is to prevent someone from running away before the trial trial. Would you prefer the guy making $1mil a year and the one making $20k to get the same bail, a bail which one doesn't even blink at while the other couldn't pay even the required 10% on?
Its paranoid and delusional psychos like you that destroy the world, cause revolutions for the sake of revolution and then ignore the massacres that follow. People like you were the inquisitioners of the past, the nazis who burnt jews with a smile on their face, the communists who sent their own mothers to Siberia, and all those others who thought they were doing the right thing because some guy made a speech and told them so. And never do they really think about it, they follow their misguided leader's talk and warped facts and never consider things logically because to do so would shatter their own warped reality.
Oh, and just so I can cut you off at the pass, don't try rolling out some link to a dictionary definition of 'monopoly.' That will just show your ignorance even more. (I can see you 100 years ago as the Standard Oil lawyer: "I protest, Your Honor, it clearly says right here in the Webster dictionary that ...")
That's okay. The next step they'll want is to tie your social security number to the pass to prevent terrorism. And they'll be allowed to. Anything is okay as long as it's to fight terrorism.
That's idiotically simplistic - ownership doesn't give you the right to make up any rules you like. Or do you think Disney should be allowed to refuse entry to Black, Jews, etc? Maybe just Muslims would be alright?
Fine. Then refuse to be scanned, they still give you the option of using the old picture ID verification system that is used everywhere else. Besides this is for a season pass, not for regular tickets.
I, however, would rather them scan my hand geometry. This way they can verify me, but cannot say "this man is Anonymous Coward," too many people have similar measurements. With a picture ID though, they will know who you are.
People are making a big deal out of nothing, it's the kneejerk Slashdot way I suppose...
First, it IS THEIR park, THEY OWN it, THEY DECIDE who gets in and HOW.
Secondly, they are not collecting fingerprints, they are checking something personally identifiable, that is the geometery of the hand, of the owner of the passes and tickets. No different than using a hand scanner at a business to control access to a sensitive area as far as I'm concerned. Don't like it, don't go there.
Why is it so hard to understand that this has NOTHING to do with your freedoms? Unless Disney suddenly was handed power without someone telling me, they can do with and control their property and services as they see fit. My choice to spend my money on business with them as I see fit. Why is this such a hard thing to grasp?
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
Weren't you the same people that elected Bush president?
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
"That's idiotically simplistic - ownership doesn't give you the right to make up any rules you like. Or do you think Disney should be allowed to refuse entry to Black, Jews, etc?"
I don't know about the person you're responding to, but that sounds reasonable to me.
Business owners free to be as idiotically bigoted as they want to be, and consumers free to give their money to companies that don't suck. It's better than the sort of concealed racism we have now.
At any rate, it's not as though this is the last straw for me where Disney's concerned. They sucked long before this situation ever saw light. I'm proud of the fact that my toddler does not recognize Mickey Mouse or any other Disney character.
You don't really get the difference between 'dictatorial' and 'fascist', do you?
Even if Disney deserves it - do those people deserve it?
No, the people don't deserve getting hurt. The employees don't deserve getting hurt. Nobody does, not anywhere, not in the USA or anywhere. It is just so frustrating watching the America I love turn into a country where human rights and civil liberties no longer mean very much. It was frustrating being called unpatriotic for not supporting the war, like I am less of an American because I don't blindly follow, and question statements government makes, for example "we were fighting for WMD" then "No, it was never about WMD, it was about removing a dictator". Does anyone remember the presentation Powell gave at the UN showing drawings of mobile WMD factories on wheels driving around Iraq. Did my mind make that up? Do people remember any of it, or do they not care??
The government is supposed to protect all the people, to value democoracy, to gaurentee individual liberty so people can read whatever they want, work anywhere, and be free. Instead, there are libraries that require fingerprints, Disney World scanning fingerprints. It follows logic, as the price of these fingerprint machines goes down, more stores will be buying them. What will it be like, when in order to pump gas you first have to scan your fingerprints, to make sure you don't drive off. Then Hotels decide they like the idea of fingerprints scans, no more keys to rooms. Then the airplains and trains decide that in order to ride, they want a fingerprint. Then the stores in poorer neighborhoods want them, for fear of being robbed. Soon, it will be hard to find places that don't want your fingerprint.
And you know what is waiting in the shadows. Some large corporation that will buy this data and put it in some uber-large database. Your whole life will be in a computer somewhere. Your habits, where you shop, what you buy, how much you make, what you read, if you preffer coke to pepsi.
What if one day there is a government that wants a coup, to overthrow the democracy we have. Would it be easier if these people had large databases, to know exactly who to go after, the troublemakers who would make noise?
Now, take that information with what employeers are doing. Large companies convinced the USA to pass NAFTA, the companies promised it would be good for American workers. Instead, these same companies are building factories in Mexico, and firing people in the USA. Jobs that people need, that familes relied on. Watch Roger and Me, it is a good example of what can happen when a large factory closes its doors, how a community can turn from upscale into a poverty stricken ghost town. And don't get me wrong, if these companies paid the same wage to mexicans as they did to americans, I would not be complaining, but they are paying the mexicans an unlivable wage. It is slave labor, when people have to work their hearts out to make just enough to eat.
And employers are getting worse. A local computer store now requires applicants to take a drug test, then come back and take a personality test which they never tell you the results to, then the last step is agreeing for a credit check. This is for a $9.50 an hour job working the floor stocking hard drives, video cards, and anwsering customer questions. And after they hire the person, they still never tell them the results to those tests, or what they did with them. If they don't hire, you have no way of knowing if those tests were the reason they did not hire you.
What scares me is what I see comming down the pike. An America with limited jobs, most low paying, and all requiring going through databases to see everything about your life. Unlike in the 60's when anyone could get a job anywhere making good money, today it is hard to find a good job. Companies like Motorola lay off 11,000 people over three years, and then give their CEO a million dollar bonus. Sun Microsystems asked the government for permission
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
80% of New Yorkers voted against Bush, by the way. That aside, I live in NYC, so you just said you would like me and my family to die. I'm sure (I hope) you're like 18 and in some "phase", but that's no excuse for what you said. The U.S. is worse than Nazi Germany? It's sad that historical memory is fading that fast. I hope the judge sets your bail VERY high.
This is such a wrong way of looking at things... What will happen is that they can do whatever pleases them - and not the general public. What happens if every theme park would implement biometric access? It's in their interest, so if one has it...
Should I be banned from themeparks? What about grocery stores? Privately owned markets? This is the same kind of argument most liberals use for employers. They can do whatever they please - if you don't like it, look for another job.
Society is there for the people that live in it. Putting any company interests in front of those of the people is plain stupid. I've got nothing against a free market place, but in every playground there should be rules.
One should be against collecting (uniquely) identifing biometrics.