Over at BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow writes about an odd security measure at Walt Disney World: fingertip readers.
Actually, "security" isn't really accurate, since the device is designed to keep park visitors from sharing admission passes with persons other than themselves. Cory points out a gaping flaw in the usefulness of the measure, namely that they still accept photo ID. So if one person uses photo ID and the other uses a fingertip, both could enter the park with the same pass (albeit at different times).
Now comes the weird part: the idea that this practice conditions kids "to
accept surveillance and routine searches and identity checks without
particularized suspicion." Cory tells a story of going to Epcot and, when he tells the "cast member" that it is possible to show ID instead of bring 'tipped, he heard a child shout, "No you have to be fingerprinted! Everybody has to be fingerprinted!" Cue the Twilight Zone theme.
One commenter on BoingBoing (phas3d), who says he used to work for the house of Mouse and still has friends inside the Magic Conglomerate Kingdom, suggests, "the [fingertip] readers have nothing to do with 'security' and everything to do with marketing." ("Be our guest, be our guest, we'll put you in, a database...") If that's true, I wonder about disclosure, since I thought (perhaps incorrectly) that such things had to be opted-into, although perhaps by buying a ticket to the park you agree to let them do whatever they want with your personal data, since Disney isn't marketing to you directly. No matter the reason, it feels unnecessary to be asked to submit to any sort of body scanning that gets stored somewhere before entering an amusement park. When said scanning is of my kids, it feels downright creepy. Yes, it's a fingertip, not a fingerprint, so it isn't the same type of data used by the FBI. But it begs the question - why do it at all?
We're taking a trip to "the happiest place on Earth" soon, and I'm going to look for those readers. I'll be curious if we really can use ID rather than be 'tipped, or if an uninformed "cast member" will say "NYET! You must put your finger in the reader, comrade!"
image: BoingBoing
