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| Walt Disney World: The Tomorrowland | 
Walt Disney World, which advertises itself as one of the happiest and most magical places in the world, also may be one of the most closely watched and secure. The control over park entrances is getting tighter: the nation's most popular tourist attraction now is beginning to scan visitor fingerprint information.
For years, Disney has recorded the geometry and shape of visitors’ fingers onto tickets to prevent ticket resale or fraud, as an alternative to time-consuming photo identification checks.
In the end of September 2006, all of the geometry readers at Disney’s four Orlando theme parks, which attract millions of visitors each year, were replaced with machines that scan fingerprint information, according to industry experts familiar with the technology.
“It’s essential technology upgrade,” said Kim Prunty, spokeswoman for Walt Disney World. The new scanner, like the old finger geometry scanner, "takes an image, identifies a series of points, measures the distance between those points, and turns it into a numerical value." She added, "To call it a fingerprint is a little bit of a stretch."
Using old machines, visitors needed to insert two fingers into a reader that identified fingers shape information. The new machines scan one fingertip for its fingerprint information. Prunty said the new system reduced wait times and is easier for guests to use. The company does not store the entire fingerprint image, but only numerical information about certain points.
Theme park consultant Arnold Tang said parks like Disney use the technology because it is more convenient for guests than showing photo identification and more accurate for theme parks, which have a significant ticket fraud problem. “There’s a lot of subjectivity,” Tang said about traditional identification checks. “People can look at a photo and identify it differently.”
Prunty said the technology ensures that multiday passes are not resold. A one day, one-park ticket to Walt Disney World costs $67, but the daily price falls dramatically for a 10-day pass. Prunty said multiday pricing is the reason for the scanners. “It’s very important that a guest who purchases the ticket is the guest who uses it,” she said.
However, the use of this technology has revolted privacy advocates, who believe Disney has not fully exposed the purpose of its new system. There are no detailing information what is being collected and how it is being used.
“The lack of transparency has always been a problem,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who added that Disney's use of technology "fails a proportionality test" by requiring too much personal information for theme park access.
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