

Vacations and Fingerprint Scans - mgamache
http://markgamache.tumblr.com/post/47330843224/vacations-and-fingerprint-scans

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peterkelly
There's one other way to complete this puzzle that isn't mentioned in most
walkthroughs:

1\. Go back to Kennedy space center

2\. In the museum, go to the third room, containing the "first monkey in
space" exhibit

3\. Wait about 30 seconds until the big hawaiian shirt guy and his family
leaves

4\. Pick up the taxidermied monkey

5\. Go to Seaworld

6\. On the screen to the left, pick up the electric eel from the aquarium and
place it in the giant water flask you bought from the guy at the beach

7\. Return to Disney World

8\. Remove the eel from the water flask, and place it behind the guard's
chair. He'll be distracted by the eel's thrashing about and start panicking
about what to do

9\. Use the taxidermied monkey with the fingerprint scanner. Your ticket will
be marked as "validated"

10\. When the commotion dies down, show your ticket to the guard, and he'll
let you in

~~~
taneliv
Is this some kind of twisted eulogy for LucasArts?

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onemorepassword
I'm pretty sure this would be illegal in the EU. Most people are disgusted
enough by the practice of being fingerprinted upon entering the US.

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emiliobumachar
Here in Brazil the government just fingerprints everyone when they go make an
ID card, which they need for everything. No one makes a fuss.

~~~
derrida
Europe still remembers the 20th century.

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DanBC
Most people in the UK were happy at the idea of ID cards. There was a vocal
group opposing them, but it wasn't a huge group.

The thing that finally killed ID cards in the UK wasn't privacy or technical
limitations, but the cost to anyone who wanted one. At £30 most people didn't
care. At £100 the scheme died.

~~~
derrida
Point noted. I guess 'Europe' is a blanket term. This is different to the
attitude in Germany & France I feel, but I may have a skewed view, mostly
interacting with hackers when I am over there.

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asafira
Well, while I'm sure this might raise eyebrows among those that are protective
of their personal data, I was just happy to see there was no shitstorm after
requesting a no-fingerprint entrance --- I think it's good that that is a "oh,
no big deal" option.

I don't understand though - why the fingerprint? So that you can exit and re-
enter the park?

~~~
ben1040
>I don't understand though - why the fingerprint?

Disney first started using the biometric turnstiles about 10 years back to
stop people from sharing season passes, and then a few years later they added
it for plain old multi-day tickets.

It used to be that there were folks lingering in every Denny's and IHOP
parking lot on International Drive in Orlando, buying and selling partially
used multi-day theme park tickets. The marginal price increase for adding an
additional day drops quite a bit for every day you add to a ticket - so you
could have bought a 10 day ticket for not all that much more than a 5-day,
used half, and sold the rest to someone else.

The fingerprint scan is done so that the ticket is biometrically locked to the
person who first uses them, thus killing that secondary market for partially
used tickets.

~~~
edouard1234567
I'm guessing they did that because most kids don't carry ids with them?
Otherwise requesting an id seems simpler?

~~~
cpa
But less efficient as it probably takes more time to check an id…

~~~
hmbg
I'm guessing an automatic ID reader is a lot cheaper than a fingerprint
reader. Most long-distance buses around here have them, so you don't have to
bring a ticket (just book with your id number).

It might be easier to spoof an ID reader, but I bet it would be hard enough to
seriously hamper the second hand market for day passes at least.

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mcantelon
Disney also uses facial recognition:

[http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/02/geeking-out-with-the-
di...](http://www.wired.com/geekmom/2012/02/geeking-out-with-the-disney-dream-
part-4-disney-biometrics/)

~~~
joezydeco
One has to admire Disney's use of technology in this area, mostly because they
seem to have a very balanced approach to this kind of work.

One one side, you're trying to streamline the customer experience (like this
facial recognition feature mentioned above) and on the other you're trying to
maximize the amount of cash extracted from each and every visitor for every
minute they're on the grounds (such as letting your room key serve as a charge
card while at park stores).

I'm sure Disney has a master plan that involves this kind of transparent
biometrics everywhere, someday. It's just being used in bits and pieces until
it gets efficient enough to use everywhere.

People have raised the privacy concerns before, such as the recent fight
between CEO Iger and US Rep Ed Markey. Iger's response was basically: "We're
not that stupid to jeopardize kids, and you don't have to visit us if you
choose not to".

[http://www.insidethemagic.net/2013/01/disney-ceo-bob-iger-
st...](http://www.insidethemagic.net/2013/01/disney-ceo-bob-iger-sternly-
replies-to-congressman-markeys-letter-addressing-magicband-privacy-concerns/)

~~~
mcantelon
>you don't have to visit us if you choose not to

True. I choose not to visit any place that is harvesting biometric data simply
to increase profitability.

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8ig8
Some details are provided in this old article from 2006:

[http://newsinitiative.org/story/2006/08/14/walt_disney_world...](http://newsinitiative.org/story/2006/08/14/walt_disney_world_the_governments)

> 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.

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derda
Why would a theme park do this? Does the government supply a terrorist-
fingerprint database?

I would understand if a private company does ID and (maybe) fingerprint
checking for visitors of their research facilities. I had this a few times,
although most of the time they maybe write down your name and address and
thats it. The only facility that took it really serious was the ESA tech-
center in Noordwijk (not to be confused with the little theme park they have
near by). They needed passport-numbers beforehand, those passport scanning
keyboards they have at airports, the software on the pc also looked similar
and guards openly carrying big guns (you seldom see that in Europe). But well,
its a space research complex there is probably a ton of military secrets
around.

But at the admission for a F'kin theme-park... Why?

~~~
wallywax
They do it to curb sharing of multi-day tickets, which is prohibited by their
terms & conditions. It's a relatively quick way to check that the person who
first used the ticket is the same person who returned with it, rather than
someone they sold/rented it to. Selling or "renting" multi-day passes for some
fraction of their days is a common way to make money in the areas around theme
parks (and a common way for people to try to save money getting in). I don't
think this is all that sinister.

I personally would rather have thumbprint scans than have to wait as each
guest's photo ID is checked every time they enter.

~~~
rficcaglia
i'm surprised they even bother with fingerprints...face recognition cant be
that far off

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derrida
I love France. I arrived there internationally and didn't even have to fill
out a form. They looked at my passport and stamped it. I do not recall them
having a scanner for the passport. This was 2-3 years ago. But this is the way
it has been through most of the 20th Century. What happened to change all of
this else where in the world?

Once you are in the EU Schengen area, you can cross numerous borders and
travel to many different jurisdictions, all without a single checkpoint or
identification required.

It sounds harder to get into Disney World than France.

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kevinprince
Far as I am aware form previous visits and discussions Disney delete the
fingerprint record when the ticket expires.

Also the level of fingerprint scanner we are talking about is not even close
to say the one UCIS use when you come into the US. UCIS having my fingerprint
is actually pretty handy as it speeds up border processing with new passports
etc.

Busch Gardens use a hand size device which is just weird.

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jgalt212
I think his 1 million visitors a day to Disney quote may be off. From some
Googling, the number appears to be around 17M/year (approx 50K/day). In any
event, that's a lot of fingerprints (foreign and domestic) potentially being
piped right into the NSA and any other 3 letter agencies who may care for such
data.

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tkahn6
How can you be sure the government doesn't have a deal with the hotel you
stayed at to have the maids lift fingerprints and DNA samples from your room?

Edit: /s

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mschuster91
Actually the bigger point is: what privacy protection do Disney visitors have?

Is it allowed for Disney to e.g. correlate their fingerprint or ID database
with a federal database for wanted people? Is it allowed for the FBI/NSA/CIA
to go to Disney and demand a full list of fingerprints of visitors?

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joezydeco
Since you're on their private property, probably not as much protection as
you're inclined to believe you have on public grounds.

That being said, if it was ever discovered that Disney was sharing visitor
information with outside groups you're guaranteed a huge public backlash, both
in the media and in the park visitor count. Disney is the type of organization
that avoids this kind of conflict, especially when a huge percentage of their
clientele are children and their parents.

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mgamache
Google complies with 88% of government data requests. Where's the outrage?

