If you were planning a trip to any of the Walt Disney World theme parks in Orlando, Fla., you will now have to scan your fingers at the front gates before you’ll be admitted to the park.
Previously only season ticket holders’ fingers were scanned, but now everyone has to have their fingers scanned. Disney says it is to help keep track of who is using legitimate tickets.
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.”
Crossley said they will be looking into the scans.
“The collecting of this fingertip information and how it is to be used and what the source of that information is as it relates to what it will show — I don’t like it and we will look into it,” Crossley said. — Local 6 News
I once had an employer who used similar technology for their employee time clock. It didn’t work half the time, and long lines in front of the time clock and manual adjustments to the time sheets were common. Even if things have improved, what is Disney really doing with this information? And can it be misused if it falls into the wrong hands?
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Justin Mason
Jul 15, 2005
Haha, if there was ever a story more appropriate for Cory at Boing Boing to comment on, I can’t think of it
Jonathan
Jul 15, 2005
Are you serious? You can’t be serious…that’s disgusting. I have a friend working there as one of the characters, she’s cool =)
Mark J
Jul 15, 2005
Justin,
This story was covered at Boing Boing by Xeni.
Michael Hampton
Jul 15, 2005
Mark, actually it was Xeni’s readers who covered it.
As I noted, originally the system was put in place to prevent people from using others’ season passes. Now it’s in place ostensibly to prevent anyone from using “your” ticket.
And I try very hard to avoid anything Boing Boing has already covered, or at least to do it better and /or in more depth.
Benjamin Geiger
Jul 16, 2005
I’ve had a Walt Disney World Premium Annual Pass for over two years now. I’ve stuck my fingers into the scanner more times than I can possibly count. And I have absolutely no concerns about my biometric information.
The reason? It’s simply not that specific, or that accurate.
First of all, it’s not a fingerprint scan. I’ve scanned through with gelatin over my fingers (which will prevent a fingerprint scan) and everything worked. As I understand it—and this is purely an educated guess—the scanner actually measures the ratio of the lengths of two bones in your hand. This is much less specific than a fingerprint. There are many instances of couples being able to use each others’ passes—the hand geometry doesn’t tie the ticket to one specific person any more than printing the owner’s height on the ticket would. All it does is add an additional check that the same person (or a member of the same subset of people) uses the pass on all days it’s valid.
Michael Hampton
Jul 16, 2005
You’re quite right. This is hand geometry scanning, rather than fingerprint scanning. But I’m stuck with the URL now.
N. Mallory
Jul 16, 2005
Fingerprint scanning technology is notoriously unreliable. I worked for a hospital that built a wellness center for senior citizens and they wanted to use fingerprint scanners to speed up member sign-in, but as you age, your fingerprints distort and wear; they spent more time trying to get accurate reads on the members than if the member had simply presented an ID card.
Interestingly, I think this is something Walt himself would have been anxious to implement if he was alive.