Disney World now requires fingerprint scans for admission

[Pangloss]

Disney World (Orlando) now requires a fingerprint scan for all visitors entering the park. Universal Studios and SeaWorld are planning to implement similar systems soon. And once your fingerprints are in the system, there's not a single thing you can do about it, because you've voluntarily given that information to a private enterprise. Your ONLY option is not to go. But now that Disney is doing it, it's only a matter of time before everyone else is doing it as well.

 

Full story here.

[Mokele]

Forgive a rather thick question, but what exactly is Disney (or anyone else) going to do with my fingerprints, other than determine who I am?

 

Mokele

[Pangloss]

Probably the same sorts of things they do with your credit card and social security numbers. (I.E. leave them on a server where hackers can steal them.) ;-)

[john5746]

Carowinds uses them for season passes.

 

I'm not too concerned, but as biometrics usage increases this may become a problem. It's all saved digitally, so this can be used to defeat the purpose eventually.

 

I think if it is only used locally into an input device, such as Disney, this should be OK. People could probably get copies of your fingerprints on paper, etc. But they can't really use them for anything.

[Mokele]

But why? It's not like you can effectively use them to forge an identity, not without doing some cool spy-stuff that I doubt is actually possible outside of movies.

 

They just strike me as a minimally useful bit of data for anything other than confirming identity.

[Pangloss]

Sure you can, and it doesn't take "cool spy stuff" at all. Fingerprint ID is a very simple (and very superficial) system, easily stored and traded.

 

Identity theft today is all about comprehensive identification. Credit card and Social Security numbers are just the beginning of the process. They form databases with those numbers, and then fill them in with extraneous info they pick up however they can. So, for example, if you get a guy's name and 3-digit card ID, then you can match it with a CC#/name entry in the database and you're off to the races.

 

Fingerprint access can add another type of confirmation to the profile. How long will it be before you can buy something at the grocery store by sticking your finger on a pad? How important will that scan at Disney be then?

 

Why worry about the loss of the three-digit code on the back of your credit card? Why worry about the theft of credit card numbers from retailers when you're not liable beyond $50 anyway? Why worry about errors in your credit report when you have all the credit you need? None of these individual factors, by themselves, is particularly important.

 

The barn is empty so there's no point in closing the door. What matters is that we're not being careful about how this information is handled and secured. Regulations may be necessary, but more importantly, we need some sort of comprehensive picture or guidelines about how companies deal with this information, how they secure it, what people expect in terms of privacy, and so forth.

[Bettina]

I think its a great idea. Millions of kids will be fingerprinted that had not previously. This could be a big help to authorities looking for kids.

 

Bettina

[Phi for All]

I can see where the tin-foil hat crowd comes by their paranoia. It's almost as if the government is allowing the identity theft crisis to escalate so that something radical like subcutaneous barcodes or microchips are the only solution.

 

By the time we realize how far down the wrong road we've gone, the radical shortcut will seem like the obvious, easiest choice to a panicked nation.

 

I'm going to google for NSA and Area 51 sites now....

[Glider]

Maybe I am just paranoid, but I find it a little unnerving. Not on its own, but as another degree. The government in the UK are introducing compulsory ID cards which will carry biometric (and possibly other) data. Apart from the fact that we're going to have to pay for the buggers and they look to be very expensive, it just seems that by increments, a minority of people are collecting huge amounts of information on the majority.

 

There is another idea here. To help create more revenue, they want to put GPS tracking units in all new cars. The idea is that drivers then get charged by the mile to drive, depending on the type of road and the time of day. This is purported to be fairer than car tax (although I doubt they'll abolish that when they introduce the system), but it also means that data will be collected concerning who is out, where they are, where they're going and when. Add this information to their ID records, their credit records etc., and it all begins to get a little 1984.

 

There were huge celebrations in the UK when ID cards were abolished after the second world war. Apparently, that act symbolised what the war had been faught for; individual freedom and the right to a private life etc.. So it just seems a little odd?