Why Does Disney Need Your Fingerprint?

An examination of Disney's biometric entry process

I went to Orlando over my vacation this past week. The plan was to spend two days at the Disney parks with my friend visiting from Massachusetts.

To be honest, I wasn’t crazy about the idea. It’s not that I don’t love the flood of nostalgia I feel whenever I go to Disney. It’s more that I’ve been working hard to disassociate myself and my money from evil corporations. Ones that have gone woke. Ones that do meaningless virtue signaling to manipulate customers into buying from them. Ones that reaped massive profits while small businesses were forced to close (sometimes permanently) during COVID.

As my list of no-fly-zone companies grows, so too does my disillusionment with humanity. To say that the last couple of years has been rough would be an understatement. So, when my friend told me she was coming down here to take a breather from the tyranny up north, I wanted to have some fun stuff planned. And when she suggested we hit up the Disney parks, I couldn’t say no. Despite disliking and distrusting Disney as much as I do, there’s a part of me that still associates it with fun and laughter. Nostalgia is a helluva a drug.

So, I hit the pause button on my disillusionment and got us some tickets.

On the first day, we went to Animal Kingdom:

We experienced a slight hiccup trying to get into the park when my friend’s phone-connected park pass wouldn’t work. The agent at the gate was very nice though and gave her a physical card she could use instead.

On the second day, we went to Epcot:

We left a bit later so we wouldn’t have to contend with the insane lines, crowds, or wait times for rides. We ended up only waiting in line to enter the park for a few minutes, which was nice. However, as we got closer to the gate, we noticed that people were placing their fingers on a scanner. My friend didn’t say anything at first and neither did I. At the time, I just assumed that some people had opted for a biometric pass.

Nope.

My friend was the first one to try to go through the gate. Here’s what happened:

Disney Agent: Scan your finger.

Friend: No, it’s okay. They gave me this pass at Animal Kingdom because—

Disney Agent: You still have to scan your finger.

Friend: What? Why?

Disney Agent: Everyone has to scan their finger to get in. It’s for security purposes.

Me: But this is our last day at the parks. We’re not coming here again.

Disney Agent: You can’t get in without a finger scan.

Friend: There’s no other way?

Disney Agent: Go to Guest Services and get your photos taken.

We got out of line and walked to the far end of the ticket booth area. We were warmly greeted by a man who told us we were in the right place if we didn’t want to do the fingerprint scan. So, we figured this must happen all the time.

He explained that there was nothing malicious going on. That Disney simply wanted to protect its guests from getting their passes stolen and that our fingerprints would not be saved. That’s what it says on Disney’s privacy policy page, too. Sort of, anyway. Disney acknowledges the fingerprint disposal part, not the purpose:

“In order to use Ticket Tag, you simply place your finger on a reader. The system, which utilizes the technology of biometrics, takes an image of your finger, converts the image into a unique numerical value and immediately discards the image. The numerical value is recalled when you use Ticket Tag with the same ticket to re-enter or visit another Park. Ticket Tag does not store fingerprints.”

But if we were still uncomfortable with it, we simply needed to have our photos taken. My friend left her hat on for hers and I turned my head to the side. I don’t know if her reasoning was the same as mine, but I felt like this would just end up being a form of facial recognition if I faced forward. And I didn’t want to submit to a biometric scan.

The Guest Services guy didn’t seem to mind that we posed the way we did, so I don’t know that it was meant to be used as biometrics. He waved us along and wished us a fun day at the park.

When we got to the front of the line once more, the whole thing started up again. I explained that we did the workaround at Guest Services. A woman was called over to handle our entry. She didn’t seem to register or care that our photos were taken. Instead, she said that we needed to show our photo IDs to get in. Since we show our licenses for all kinds of things in this country (except to vote in some states, I guess), we happily submitted to the request and were finally able to get through.

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Okay, so now that the story is out of the way, I want to address the problems I see here and my concerns for what it means.

Here’s what I’m going to say about the Disney entry policy:

If it truly is about protecting Disney guests from having their park tickets (which are very expensive, even for a Florida resident like myself) stolen, then I get why they’d implement a two-factor authentication system. I use 2FA to protect access to things like my website, email, and bank account. However, I don’t use biometric 2FA. Fingerprints. Facial IDs. Voice recognition. It may not be hackable in terms of gaining access to my stuff, but that kind of identifiable information can be exploited by the people who own the systems. No matter how many times they tell you they’d never do it.

Obviously, I don’t believe that our security/privacy is the true intent of the biometric scans. Here are some reasons why:

• We didn’t have to do a finger scan at Animal Kingdom. Why? If it’s necessary to confirm our identity and ownership of the pass, then it should be consistently implemented across all parks.

• The Disney Experience App has an area where you manage your account and passes. When I went to the parks in 2014, I had gotten a physical Disney pass. Somewhere between my moves to New York, Delaware, Rhode Island, and back to Florida, I lost that pass. And you know what? The Disney app let me mark it as stolen so no one else could use it:

So, again, it’s clear that Disney hasn’t instituted this finger scanning system for us. It’s for them. I’m just not sure if we know all the reasons why it benefits them.

• The Disney agents get on the same page. The first woman expected us to be okay with a response on par with “Because I said so”. The Guest Services guy said it was to protect us. And when I googled the question “why does disney do fingerprint screening”, the posts all answered it the same way:

Disney wants to prevent ticket fraud. In other words, it doesn’t want you giving your pass to someone who’s not you. So, it’s not really about protecting the guests. It’s about protecting Disney’s bottom line. Fun fact: I worked as a contractor for Disney (via Hulu) about 10 years ago. So I know first-hand that that company has a lot of money to burn. I’ve seen it in action. I highly doubt that ticket fraud makes that big of a dent in the company’s wallet.

• Disney implemented the fingerprint screening across all admission checkpoints in 2005, according to this post on AllEars. I went to the Disney parks in 2014 and I don’t remember having to submit to a fingerprint screening, so I’m not sure when exactly it became a strict requirement. That said, Disney World did suspend the policy in 2020 when it reopened after temporarily closing due to COVID. If Disney was able to use a more efficient and touchless entry system during that time, why bring biometrics back a year later in 2021?

• If they could use our photo IDs to confirm that the passes belong to us, then why not present that option upfront when someone objects? Were they just hoping that asking us to get out of line and take extra steps would be enough to make us submit to the finger scan? Looking at forum responses related to this question, I think that’s exactly what Disney is hoping for. This is from the DISboards forum in 2007:

The responses read like the kinds of things you’d see on Twitter during COVID. What’s the big deal? Why are you complaining? There’s nothing to worry about. If you look at how people so easily gave into the lockdowns, masking, and vaccines without question and then wouldn’t dare consider their opponents’ arguments, it’s no surprise that people don’t bat an eyelash at what’s going on. I think, too, for a lot of people that, when they finally get to the entryway and they’ve paid hundreds of dollars (and likely more) to go to Disney, a fingerprint seems like a reasonable trade to make. Sadly.

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I don’t think I’m an irrational person for being uncomfortable with this and for asking questions about the policy, especially when it’s inconsistently implemented and various reasons are given for it. Plus, if Disney has that procedure in place to deal with people who don’t want the finger scan done, then we’re not the only ones to contest the biometric entry.

As I wrap up here, I’m gonna leave you with some final thoughts as to where I think this is going:

First, I worry that Disney will somehow be able to use the fingerprint data (even if it’s not the fingerprint itself) to share or sell the data connected to it — like the things bought in the park, the hotel rooms booked, the upgrades made, etc. This idea is a little hard to flesh out since I’m not sure how different it is from Disney trading our park-related data when it’s connected to the MagicBand. That said, what if it’s similar to the Canadian trucker’s story?

Of course, I can’t find a link to the video now, but the trucker said that he had a digital travel pass stored on his phone. As he drove up to the checkpoint, he went rummaging around for the phone, only to be told by the attendant that they’d already identified the pass and him as he approached. Perhaps our Disney biometric data won’t be used for advertising and marketing gains, but instead for tracking purposes as we enter stores, event venues, restaurants, or anywhere else that implements biometric screening in the future.

Secondly, I worry that Disney may be part of a larger organism that’s trying to get us used to digital ID passports and biometric tracking. It’s not too far-fetched to think that Disney is answering to a higher power like the World Economic Forum or China. Now is the perfect time to push this kind of system on the people, too.

Back in 2012, the ACLU seemed to be worried about Disney’s biometric policy:

“On the subject of socializing a generation of children to accept surveillance technologies, Disney World is installing a new biometric fingerprint tracking system, and is interested in deploying face recognition… The company’s involvement in the technology is so extensive that a Disney executive provided expertise on biometrics to the government after 9/11, and several Disney employees have left the company to take jobs at the NSA or elsewhere in the intelligence community… In some ways it’s surprising that Disney would embrace such a technology, so seemingly at odds with the innocence and nostalgia that the company sells. On the other hand, the “simpler times” that the company appeals to are of course completely illusory—devoid of political, economic or ethnic conflict, protest, and social change—and maintaining that illusion at its theme parks has often prompted the company to lean towards policies of order and control, with which fingerprinting fits right in.

However, we no longer have the ACLU standing up against the true crimes of humanity that they voiced concerns about not too long ago. The ACLU has gone woke and something like this wouldn’t even register on the organization’s radar today:

One last thing I worry about is that this system is meant to enhance the division amongst people and the “othering” of people who don’t conform. It’s not like people who’ve submitted to the scan will stand up for those who don’t nor will they try to understand why they oppose it. Instead, they’ll just wave from the other side of the gate and say “Oh well!” as friends and family members refuse to give in.

Even if it’s not a primary goal, Disney and its partners must be aware of this side effect.

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Personally, I think this whole thing smells fishy. And while I do have pleasant memories from my visits to Disney when I was younger, I have no plans to return or to give that company any more of my money.

I wish I’d had the chance to digest all of this before my last trip. I would’ve had time to talk it through with my friend and made other plans. But Disney doesn’t readily publish this information on the site or app, so how could we have had that discussion unless someone told us about the policy? Plus, COVID-related notices populate the majority of the screen everywhere you go on the website or app:

It’s not fair of me to expect Disney to inform guests about the park entry process, especially not when buying their tickets. COVID fear porn must always take a front seat.

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Now that I’ve said my piece, what do you think about all this? Should we be worried? And who will be next to ask for our fingerprints?