Unlike at other theme parks, where all you need is a ticket to gain admittance, Disney years ago began requiring a biometric finger scan, along with a ticket, to ensure that tickets were not resold, exchanged or transferred from one visitor to another. (Which raises an economic argument about whether a ticket holder ought to have the right to resell that property... but that's another topic.)
Disney's old biometric scanners "read" information about finger size and shape. But the new ones record fingerprints, making it possible for Disney to synch its data to a wide variety of databases, including the FBI's. Disney says that it is not storing fingerprint images, but privacu advocates say that making that switch would be trivial.
One final note. This story was written by students at Northwestern University (my undergraduate alma mater) as part of the Carnegie-Knight "News21" project, for which I was an advisor this summer at the University of Southern California (where I also teach).
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Also, the finger scans don't always come up or work correctly.
I think its mainly so that people aren't using the same ticket for two people. It would be very simple to get two people in with one park hopper without the finger scan as long as you have two tickets!
Um... on a literal level, isn't "being touchy" the whole issue here? ;-)
Personally, I don't care.
When you buy a ticket to an event or park, you ought to own the right to one admission to said event. If you wish not to use that admission, and to recover your payment by selling that right to someone else, why, I think you should be able to do that.
In the case of a multi-day theme park ticket, I think that a ticket holder ought to be able to resell the unused days on that ticket to whomever he or she pleases, so long as that person meets the admission requirements of the ticket. (In other words, no selling kids' tickets to adults.) Why should a ticket holder have to eat the cost of an unused ticket if for whatever reason he or she does not wish to use it, and others want to buy it? Isn't this just a free market in action?
Now, I am *very* sympathetic to parks' desire to eliminate the black market in counterfeit and invalid tickets. By eliminating stamped dates on tickets, Disney made it impossible for consumers to see how many days remained valid, if any, on a ticket, creating a huge opportunity for "trust me, it is good" fraud. If someone buys an aftermarket ticket, they ought to get want they were promised.
And, I am also sympathetic to parks' wanting to ensure that a single admission results in... a single admission. Someone should not be able to enter the park on a ticket, then leave and hand the ticket over to someone else to use without charging an extra visit day to the ticket.
The handstamp system, however, took care of that quite well.
I work in the retail industry and we've been long notified of the coming use for Credit/Debts for about four years now. (European countries already use "thumb print security" on their credit cards ... Have you ever wondered what that chip was on your American Express?)
It is not "Big Brother" who is watching. It is the money lenders.
At first, the only thing that crossed my mind when doing that was, "Boy, this feels warm...not wait...this is actually hot! Ok, fingerscan done. How long is the line for Space Mountain?"
Now, I'm more....curious. Is Disney ACTUALLY storing this?
When I was last at Universal in April, they did not have the fingerprint scanner; they relied on the matching signatures approach to make sure that a multi-day ticket was being used by the original purchaser. The fingerprint scanner must be new.
I prefer the way Busch does it simply because there's no master database of hand dimensions; they just want to make sure the same person is consistently using their own season pass.
I understand biometric systems. I'm not a bumpkin. I understand so-called "wire-tapping" as well, but seeing as how this is "ThemeParkInsider.com" and not "BeltwayInsider.com", I'll leave those comments out. As far as theme park admission goes: there is nothing wrong with scanning finger prints. Scanning finger prints and selling them to other vendors? Sure. Scanning fingerprints to as a way to ensure you are who you claim to be for all Disney-related intents and purposes? Whatever. You know they have records of who all has bought tickets before, as well, and if you use a credit card, forget it. They have a lot of info about you.
As far as reselling tickets, I understand the free market, and am a big supporter of it. But a free market can't work if a company has to compete with theives for profit. Disney doesn't want what happens with the Super Bowl to happen to Disney tickets, that's all. At last year's game, only about 1,000 tickets were sold from the box office to the customer. All others were bought up by corporations, special groups, etc. That's not good for customer relations...because you've then got people trying to come in who can't get tickets, and that's not neccessarily because the park is too busy, it's because the systems show a sell-out. And that's just one problem. Others include fraud, misinformation as given by false vendors, etc. It does a lot to undermine the planned experience of visiting Disney.
I do see what you mean about one person selling one person an unused ticket, but the risk of fraud is just too great.
Don't blame Disney, blame the crooks.
That is pretty much end of debate on the issue. You pay for your entry into the parks for a specific number of days. The entry purchased is yours and yours alone. Kind of (just an example)like a license plate for your car. You can't move to another state and sell the plate for the remaining time left on the sticker.
I say Kudos to Disney on a couple levels. This prevents the sale of bogus tickets and if they do ever link with a law enforcement agency of some kind (I think that is down the road at best) and we can catch some of the earth's creeps, then great! Big brother is all over and is here to stay. We might as well embrace the good that can come of it and not worry about the bad because it is going to happen regardless.
Disney scanning your fingerprint is not Big Brother. The government scanning your finger print and using that finger print to make sure you can buy food and etc. is Big Brother. And no, the two are not on the opposite ends of the proverbial slippery slope. There are surveillance cameras at theme parks as well. Is that Big Brother? Should they do away with those? What about the old photos on Season Passes? Was that Big Brother? When you enter Disney World, you are on private property. That ALONE makes it NOT Big Brother.
Don't fall into the trap of skepticism and negetivity to the point where they cripple common sense.
Your fingerprint is a unique identifier, and I would be hesitant to the point of not going to a park that required me to provide a fingerprint that the park system/company will keep on file. The files could potentially be hacked into -- and there's enough threat of identity theft already without my giving my fingerprint to a theme park.
And, I'll admit, just the idea of it seems so extreme to me. As though, yes, the next step is a saliva test, a few skin cells from the inside of your cheek, or a urine sample. That may sound extreme, but to me, a fingerprint IS extreme. And what a potentially handy source for the government to add to their surveillance capabilities! A private corporation wouldn't even need to scruple -- like, e.g., public libraries should have about handing over their patrons' info and borrowing histories -- about handing private information over under subpoena or government order whatever.
Do I know abuses of this information would happen? No. But do I want to risk it? No, again.
I just wish that it were not, as I think that, in general, consumers ought to have the right to resell property that they buy without having to get the permission of the original manufacturer. If should not have to make an agreement with Toyota never to resell my Echo because Toyota wants to protect its new car sales.
But, again, to clarify, given that we are dealing with park admissions here, and not cars, I do not believe that people should be allowed to get another person in on their ticket or annual pass. If you are using it, no else should. But if you are not, you should be able to sell it.
Scr-w these corporations trying to get as much information about us as possible. First Verizon, Comcast, etc etc trying to make the internet a two-tiered platform where they can force you to go to their personally endorsed sites, and Verizon selling their customers' phone numbers to telemarketers, as well as a number of other corporations being like this...now we have Disneyland trying to add fingerprint scanning databases of all their customers. I'm sick of these info-hungry corporations claiming their reasons being "it's hurting their profits" when their profits are so high that I can only dream of making as much money in my life as they make in a year.
what ever corporations have to do to make more profits, the better, myself as a business owner, that is the whole idea. and if you dont like what the company policies, products, or taste are, then dont spend your money on them, go somewhere else, by the way, make sure that you dont use a credit card, because they can trace you with that :)
Erik, no offense, but that's rediculous. I'm assuming you meant that everybody here had blinders on. That's a very arrogant position to take, if it was, indeed, your meaning
That was indeed my meaning, and see it as arrogance if you want, but if it were any other company than disney a lot of folks would see a problem with it. The fact is that they can use that same system to link up to the system used with the FBI....your information, should it be decided to do so, becomes now government knowledge. Mark my words, there will be a panic when someone gets a hold of fingerprint records that disney uses for ticketing purposes. Then there will be a call to stop it. Again, just one more place trying to get information that about me that I dont want them to have. Like it or not, thats what it is....and whether you agree or disagree with my position, thats what my position is. If they do plan on instituting this new system I will be at the front of the complaint line against it, and I personally will not purchase anymore tickets from establishments that use this particular technology. Just an opinion, and as far as I can tell, still my right to feel that way.
When you buy a ticket you are buying YOUR key to the Kingdom for a specific period of time. It's yours and yours alone.
I find it funny how many people are afraid of the fingerprint requirement. Disney has been using it for years on season passes and nobody down here is freaking out.
“The lack of transparency has always been a problem,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who added that Disney's use of technology "fails a proportionality test" by requiring too much personal information for theme park access.
"What they're doing is taking a technology that was used to control access to high-level security venues and they're applying it to controlling access to a theme park," Coney said.
"It's impossible for them to convince me that all they are getting is the fact that that person is the ticket-holder," said George Crossley, president of the Central Florida ACLU.
But Disney's Prunty downplayed privacy issues, saying the scanned information is stored "independent of all of our other systems," and "the system purges it 30 days after the ticket expires or is fully utilized." Visitors who object to the readers can provide photo identification instead – although the option is not advertised at the park entrance.
Scanning fingerprint information isn't new to private businesses or the government, which scans fingerprints of visitors entering the country.
But surprisingly, after the Sept. 11 attacks the federal government sought out Disney’s advice in intelligence, security and biometrics, a tool that teaches computers to recognize and identify individuals based on their unique characteristics.
The federal government may have wanted Disney's expertise because Walt Disney World is responsible for the nation's largest single commercial application of biometrics, said Jim Wayman, director of the National Biometric Test Center at San Jose State University.
"The government was very aware of what Disney was doing," he said. "Everybody's interested in a successful project."
Industry insiders say Disney has expressed interest in an even more advanced form of biometric technology _ automated face recognition. It has been touted as a way to pick criminals and terrorists out of a crowd.
So again, if this becomes common practice, me being a passholder will not be. Most likely that wont sway a lot of you, because you fancy that sort of behavior, but it plays a big role for me.
Now, I must disagree with the rest of his position. First, as far as blinders go, that's very condescending of you. Also, I never said you couldn't have the opinions that you have, just that the opinions that you have are wrong. As such, I would ask you one question: why do some people seem to get so defensive about people questioning their thoughts? Why do some people feel that their opinions are above discussion? Just because I disagree with you doesn't mean I don't think you have a right to feel the way you do. But, it also doesn't mean that an opinion, once stated, cannot be challenged or questioned. Moving on...
Second - Other parks, to my knowledge, have done what Disney is doing, so you're contention that Disney gets a pass because it's Disney is wrong. I'm not firmiliar with the difference between a general scan and a direct one, but, for example, Busch Gardens Europe, to which I hold a season pass, requires a hand-scan. Now, if my hand-scan is my own, and can be used to identify me, and can tell the system the difference between me and the next guy, well then I'm having a hard time seeing the real difference between that and the type of conventional finger-printing done at a police station, besides the matter of technique. Using your biology to identify you is using your biology to identify you. Whether it's a finger-print or a bite test, or a retinal scan, it's still storing and using your identifying biology to tell the park who you are.
Third - Disney has a right to do whatever it wants. This is America. Some pinhead sitting around talking about "disproportionality" has, of course, the right to do so, but again, doesn't gain credibility simply for doing it. They cite that Disney is now using the technologies of high-security venues and applying them to a theme park, implying that this is overkill. Well, as a somewhat frequent visitor of Disney parks, it's nice to know that Disney considers itself a high-security venue. It has been the policy for as long as Disney has been around that no-one without a ticket could get into the park, so in as much as it has always been Disney's policy that no one can come in without Disney's knowledge, Disney has ALWAYS been a high security venue, and it's id systems act in accordance with that position.
Really to me, what difference des it make? It doesn't violate the constitution, it doesn't break any laws. I'm all for it. And no, I don't have blinders on. I'm not retarded. I just don't have a problem with something that isn't a problem. Bring on the retinal scan.
Disney, a company which is very interested in brand and quality control, probably doesn't want people buying tickets and then posing as a Disney vendor. Also, it creates problems with refunds, or lost tickets, etc.
It's as much a quality control issue as it is anything else, I imagine.
After 9.11, the government may have contacted Disney about it's practices, because we learned that we face a serious security threat. New methods need to be emplemented to help those security procedures, and as we have seen from 200 years of free-enterprise, nobody does it quite like the private sector. What it tells me is that Disney has an EFFECTIVE security system, and that the government was interested in it for use in their OWN practices.
That is NOT the same a Disney and the Government being in cahoots and Disney selling your thumb print to mean ol' George Bush so he can wire-tap your phone and get your date plans for Friday night. It is nothing more or less than Disney trying to stop people from committing ticket fraud.
It doesn't hurt you, it doesn't endanger you, it doesn't even affect you, other than the three extra seconds it takes to scan in. If your credit card has ever been used in public, you have a lot more to worry about from that than you do from the prints.
One question on that Robert. How do you handle the situation where the park gives you a substantial discount on additional days as Disney does with the Magic Your Way Ticket pricing? It can cost a family of 4 as little as $8 total for an extra days admission on longer stay tickets. Disney gave that discount to those people for their extra day to encourage a longer stay not for someone to use for their first day.
I do understand wanting to resell tickets under th3 old model where there wasn't such a substantial discount on multi day tickets but now the discount is extreme. I understand Disneys goal here. If someone wants to go to the parks for a single day the price is intentionally high. Disney is rewarding people for longer stays with lower average price per day admission. Allowing the tickets to be resold undermines that marketing strategy. You may not like the strategy but they have the right to price the product the way they want and people have the right to not go there.
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