Comments on: Mickey Prints

By: ArghhMeHearties

ArghhMeHearties — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 18:45:06 +0000

Give it a friggin’ rest. The scanners get you in the park. There is no correlation between the park entry scan and any purchase you make while at the park. If you use cash there is no electronic trace of any purchase activity. Sure, there are hidden cameras everywhere but not tied to the scanner nor the purchase history. Stop with all the noise. Disney is doing this so they can charge big bucks for their tickets and have no secondary market to give the consumer relief. Didn’t anyone find it strange that 6 months after the park system went live, Disney overhauled all its ticket prices. 5 days at the park costs well over $200. Disney knows that given that steep pricetag, the ordinary consumer will look everywhere for price relief. Enter biometrics; driven simply by Disney greed for ever increasing entry prices.

Cap’n Jack

By: MyThirdAye

MyThirdAye — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:49:31 +0000

Shit, a few spell errors. But that doesn’t take away the credibility of my statement.

By: MyThirdAye

MyThirdAye — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:46:27 +0000

Who gives a shit what the reasons are behind Disney using biometric scanning. The reality is, they use it. “It’
s not even your fingerprint” No, but it’s a small pebble that’s being rolled down a snow slope. The worst part is, when I go to Islands of Adventure and Disney, I see thousands of people getting they’re fingers scanned without question. (Big smiles. Everything is ok.) Whatelse are they not going to question? Retinal scans in 3 years. DNA scans in 7? We’re being slowly(the most effective way to brainwash society)manipulated to accept this technology and it’s only going to get worse. Example; instead of using my finger to get through the gate, I showed my drivers license. They were cool with this a year ago. One year later, now I have to have a manager come out and I have to sign a piece of paper and go through a whole lot of noise just to get into the parks without a peice of my body being scanned.(Inconvient isn’t it. That is what they want. Invasive technology liek this will be cloaked in “conveniences”) Now they tell me that pretty soon the “Driver’s License” option will no longer be available. Just a small pebble rolling down the snow slope.

By: Tri333

Tri333 — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 05:10:46 +0000

I just visited Disney world this past week and I was taken back by this system…At first I was angry at myself for just blindly giving my fingerprint…the next time I questioned what the purpose was, and then was given the same explanation everyone has mentioned previously, it is to prevent the re-selling of tickets. I have read both sides of the arguments for this, and I agree with Pingback: what is the percentage of tickets that Disney sells that have been resold? Does everyone realize how much money Disney makes? I doubt that the prevention of a few ‘resold’ tickets amounts to anything substantial in comparison to the amount Disney profits from its ticket sales…so for this we are giving up our personal information. While this may not seem like such a big deal now, I believe we are just opening pandora’s box, and we are being conditioned to give up our privacy without questioning it.

By: No Sheep » Disney Biometrics

No Sheep » Disney Biometrics — Sun, 09 Apr 2006 22:47:05 +0000

[...] ple do… I bet it is less than .01%. Also of interest are these further discussions: Mickey Prints Biometrics at the Disney Gates tags: biometrics, disney, disney wor [...]

By: Alfred Gunther

Alfred Gunther — Tue, 28 Feb 2006 00:57:04 +0000

I agree with Mats. I couldn’t believe how all the “cattle” at Disney and Universal behaved. (Universal’s policy is even woarse, they require a thumbprint!) No one else seems to mind! I was blowing a gasket at the customer service counter. I asked for a refund of the unused days on my multiday pass. Disney refused. What recourse do you have? Nothing! Disney says this policy is being used to prevent reselling of tickets, but it is really pi$$ing me off, a family guy who only wants the ability to save a partially used ticket for a later trip, possibly with another family member.

By: dan

dan — Thu, 13 Jan 2005 14:06:31 +0000

Good thing they accept photo id, cause it would mean I would never see Disney.

I’m all for technology but when humans become a scanable product… well I guess you elected Bush, and that other 48%, see!

By: kalu

kalu — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 02:08:42 +0000

People here mention that this was done by disney to stop reselling of passes. But there are more simpler solutions if the objective was to stop reselling of passes. how about put a simple picture on the pass, that way it becomes a photo id and can not be easily mis used.

To think that disney put in this high tech system just to stop misusing of passes when there are simpler solutions available which guard the consumer privacy better is a falacy.

By: AQ

AQ — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 00:32:43 +0000

Why willingly give even more information to Disney for their business? Are we on their payroll, or something?

Really, do any of you thinking this is a good thing actually believe in competition in the marketplace to ensure a robust economy? For some reason you want to willingly give one business a serious advantage over others, and based on what merits? They let you ride Space Mountain?

Give me a break, you can call people who disagree with it conspiracy theorists all day long, but at the end of the day this isn’t necessarily a privacy issue, it is an issue with willingly giving one corporation a competitive advantage over others with no long term personal gain for yourself. That’s just too fascist for many of us.

By: Mats

Mats — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 14:15:43 +0000

What surprises me is that Americans seems to take their privacy so lightly. In the name of security all is allowed. I agree with ‘Malarkey’ in that if I”ve done nothing wrong, why do you need my data? It’s just another way for the goverment to keep their fear of citizens under control. It’s a “If I know where everyone is, they can’t hurt me.” attitude and it sucks.

What’s next, neighbours spying on each other … sounds very East-German.

By: Nick Merritt

Nick Merritt — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 06:29:53 +0000

Yes, in a sense, the only thing that is surprising about this bit of news is the fact that (as I gather) the process has yet to be implemented as compulsory.

Were it me, and were I with one of the children who almost inevitably figure into this form of entertainment (save for the early morning/last day solo jaunt back into the recesses of Epcot), I’d bend the kid’s ear for a minute or two over a Mickey-head-shaped frozen treat (the one with gumballs for eyes) and ask them what _they_ think about the business. Safe to say that maybe the only thing a kid likes more than being indulged as a kid is being treated like a grown-up. In any event, I bet it would make for illuminating conversation.

Of course, if I sensed myself getting to sound a bit too grown-up, I’d challenge the kid to see which of us could successfully identify more closed-circuit cameras in an hour’s time.

By: Keith Burgin

Keith Burgin — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 05:32:31 +0000

Privacy is an illusion, and has been for many years. It is an unfortunate byproduct of the times we live in.

So Mickey wants my prints – that’s cool. It’s not a real shocker. What’s actually amazing to me is that people are still surprised by this type of thing.

By: Roy Schestowitz

Roy Schestowitz — Tue, 11 Jan 2005 05:23:35 +0000

Who minds it when fingers are being scanned? To tell you all the truth, I don’t mind sending you a scan of my feet.

Bigger privacy issues are detailed logs, with IP addresses, domain name and in an academic domain (as in my case), even your name.

Privacy is compromised. Google can identify many of you given the full name and then refer to people’s thoughts on you.

It’s inevitable. The younger generation lives and copes with it.

In the 60′s: man goes to work, gets phonecalls from close friends only and lives far away in suburbs.

2004: young man surfs the Web, writes about his next door neighbour, gets telemarketing harassments.

By: Paul Roberts

Paul Roberts — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:01:47 +0000

so they steal your fingers along with the pass???

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 10 Jan 2005 20:24:12 +0000

As a Disney World regular myself I thought I’d chime in with some info.

As pointed out above the main reason behind the finger scan is to cut down on the re-sale of Disney World Tickets.

A somewhat healthy industry re-selling Disney World Tickets has sprung up around the central Orlando area with many hotels and restaurants having tickets booths who buy “un-used days” from Tourists for a few dollars each and sell them on to other tourists looking to make a saving on the high cost of taking a vacation at Disney World. Of course if people are buying tickets from unauthorized sources this means less dollars in Disney’s pockets – the new ticketing scheme instantly wipes out this re-selling business as it becomes almost impossible to cheat the finger scanners and therefore tourists have no option but to buy their tickets direct from Disney or their authorized agents.

In addition, as mentioned above there are also some unscruplous folks (mostly on eBay – surprise, surprise!) who re-sell used tickets with no days remaining on the pretense that there are still a few days left, only for the boor buyer to get to Disney World and have their ticket rejected (the tickets are cards with the info stored on a magnetic strip with no visible indicator of how many days remain), all this does is create bad PR for Disney.

As for the finger scans tracking your purchase habits and such, that’s not really what there in place for, rather than do a true scan of your finger-print (no two person’s are alike) the scanners actually simply measure the length of your finger-print. It’s quite possible, infact very likely that people will have finger-prints the same length, it’s just that who knows that they have the same finger print size as eBay seller diznee_ticketts2005 (or some such nonsense)??? And of course, they already have your credit-card details on file from when you purchased the ticket to match you up with your purchases in the parks.

Disney have some far cooler ways of tracking their visitors, such as their My Pal Mickey plush toy which picks up parade and show times, and “fun facts” about the parks as you take ol’ Mick around the world with you, all via Wi-Fi, and of course your every move in the park is sent back to Disney via the same, innocent wireless transmitting plush.

It’s not all smiles and pixydust in the Magic Kingdom!