A future government agent?
Can’t begrudge them protecting the park and visitors. As the article points out, what happens if they start storing the info and sharing with others?
Walt Disney World: The Government’s Tomorrowland?
Walt Disney World, which bills itself as one of the happiest and most magical places anywhere, also may be one of the most closely watched and secure. And control over park entrances is getting even tighter: the nation’s most popular tourist attraction now is beginning to scan visitor fingerprint information.
For years, Disney has recorded onto tickets the geometry and shape of visitors’ fingers to prevent ticket fraud or resale, as an alternative to time-consuming photo identification checks.
By the end of September, all of the geometry readers at Disney’s four Orlando theme parks, which attract tens of millions of visitors each year, will be replaced with machines that scan fingerprint information, according to industry experts familiar with the technology.
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.
Here’s the really scary part. Once we become “comfortable” with monitoring, it’s a short step into becoming comfortable with control.
“It helps public perception to have biometrics deployed on a widespread basis,” said Joseph Campbell, the former chairman of the Biometrics Consortium. “The more people use biometrics, the more people are comfortable with it.”
The problem with biometrics is not the technology, but the misapplication of it. We would all love personal biometric devices that would only work for us, we only hate the fact that electronic monitoring of identity is also an enabling technology for Big Brother.
Then again, RFID can do it for Big Brother without the biometrics by way of implanted chips.
Once someone has figured out how to falsify your biometric data, how do you go about changing it? It may be harder to falsify biometric data but I remember a while back, someone found that gummy bears were good for capturing finger print data.
May be it might be worthwhile to figure out a way for the actual owner of the biometric data to prove it is his data before these biometric scanners are deployed everywhere.
I live within an hour of Disney and have an annual pass. This upgrade is needed. Many times the geometry scanners were not being used or would produce a false negative. For example, wearing rings on different fingers would cause problems. To the privacy aspect: If they want our fingerprints, they already have them on our tickets. To the forgery idea: Disney still has a Cast Member at every turnstile. I think they would notice if someone had a gummy bear on their finger. Plus, so many people go through the reader that it would be very hard to capture a specific fingerprint off of it.
Privacy for the most part is dead. Has anyone paid one of those people search companies to find a person? It’s unbelievable the info they turn up. I just wanted a current address to return property to an old colleague I hadn’t seen in 25 years. I got the guys life history emailed to me in 20 minutes.
A couple of things.
I understand you can opt out if you want . Great I will be doing that or going to Universal Studios instead. I figure if I am spending $6000 for a week at Disney World I should at least not have to feel like a common criminal unless that is one of the new ride experiences.
Fingerprinting is NOT a science and is given way too much credibility since 1892 Why do people bend over so easily for what is basically a pseudo-science art form?
I wonder if this means we will soon have to be fingerprinted to watch a Disney DVD as part of the onslaught of DRM technology? lol Yeah not really that funny.
I wonder if this means we will soon have to be fingerprinted to watch a Disney DVD as part of the onslaught of DRM technology?
So that is what the finger-scan on Thinkpads is for! 🙂
Seriously: My problem with this technology is that the skin on my fingertips gets dry/cracked in the Fall/Winter months – so I would probably have a problem unless I used a pinky-finger. Getting a paper-cut, or accidentally cutting yourself while using an exacto knife, would also seem to be able to lock you out of your own computer…
I’ve got a nice 1/2-inch long scar on my left index finger-tip, from a gash [required 2 stiches] I got at work – several years ago, while I was in the Navy.
If I use a fingerprint to secure my files, how do I access my own files if somehow damage the skin of that finger?
And the same question applies to retina/iris scanners, if I put my eye out with a BB gun [ A Christmas Story]. 😉
I have attended Disneyworld many times over the years and their biometric scanners were always an ongoing joke. It became a game to see just how easily they could be fooled. We would swap our annual passes between different people, use different fingers in the scanner, etc., and it almost never denied entrance. One can only hope that there new technology is a little more reliable if trying to keep a terrorist out…
Tom
Great. We’re well on the way to thought control.
Oh well, as the neocon nutjobs are wont to say “if you haven’t done anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about”. Riiiiiiiiiiight.
And how was the Disney World land in Florida first acquired?
To keep real estate prices from rising on speculation – Disney world’s acreage was purchased through a lawyer for an investor named “Yensid Tlaw” (Walt Disney spelled backwards).
Yensid Tlaw was also an early pen name for Walt Disney.
Source: The Disney/MGM studio backlot tour narration.
So their roots are in assumption of false identity.
Ever consider that some previous person through the biometic hand reader might have some incurable contageous skin condition?
I remember a while back, someone found that gummy bears were good for capturing finger print data.
Not only that, but the Mythbusters did a ‘deluxe’ fingerprint scanner that supposedly checked for pulse, body heat, etc. – and bypassed it immediately not only with a ballistics gel (professional version of the gummi bears) but with a PHOTOCOPY of the finger. (Recent original episode). The manufacturer said it had never been bypassed… but they did it VERY easily.
J/P=?
There are two types of fingerprint scanners, optical and CMOS. Optical scanners can be spoofed with any good visual copy of the fingerprint, hence the photocopy trick. You can add a temperature sensor, but that can be easily defeated by warming the copy. (If the copy is a thin applique, the user’s heat and pulse would bleed through anyway.)
A CMOS fingerprint sensor is a silicon device that actually distinguishes the difference between the live and dead skin on the fingertip to generate the image. A swipe sensor is even more secure because any copy would have to be robust and flexible enough to survive being dragged across the sensor.
I wonder which technology Disney will use?
If I use a fingerprint to secure my files, how do I access my own files if somehow damage the skin of that finger?
That is why many fingerprint systems allow you to register several fingers. My Thinkpad recomends you register at least 2.
666
Mickey Mouse … the Anti Christ … Who knew!
Has Apple started using this technology? No? Then who cares?
As a LONG time Annual Passholder to Disneyland and an Annual Passholder to WDW for the past couple of years – I just don’t see the what all the fuss is about. Get over it! Look at the masses going through the gates at ALL of the Disney’s properties, daily and look at their safety records. Personally, I applaud Disney! One more thing – why do we, as Americans, think we should ALWAYS have our cake and eat it too? In today’s world there are just some minor sacrifices we are going to have to make for freedom.