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.'"
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.
They were forced to send all their passengers data to the government.
From what I heard, that is not quite true. Apparently, the feds told the airlines that they did not have to turn over the info. But if they did not, the US gov. would forbid ALL employees from flying the airline. In addition, they would not be eligible for the loan (did not help United, but I am not sure that United gave up the data). Finally, they might have a hard time making changes at airports, flights, etc.
Basically, GWB's admin guaranteed that if they did not cooperate, that the feds would sink them slowly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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.
You are confusing common-sense business with the activities of mega-corporations. Once corporations become as large as some small countries, they too develop an unquenchable thirst for power and control over others, the sheep known as "consumers" in particular.
So they deploy police-state mesures, even if they are actually losing money on the specifics. The general idea however is that enslaving "consumers" will in the long-term result in an uninterruptible (regardles of economics) income. Disney (like many other corporate nation-states) has been engaged in these activities for a very long time.
You did not think DMCA was about piracy, now, did you?