6 ms·

Data-Free Disney

109 points by docdeek 4y ago

acdha 4y ago
They collect data because they see a business benefit. The only things which can change that will be regulation or people changing their spending habits. Spending money at their parks isn't going to change anything.
foxbee 4y ago
> The kids met their Pixar heroes and had a lightsaber duel with Chewbacca. Meanwhile, I was riding high on my own personal “spy-versus-spy” adventure the whole day. It's critical to always have a secret mission on these occasions. Great, fun read!
birdman3131 4y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 was the companion discussion. To quote the author. "(Note: This is the companion post to my article at Public Books about evading data detection at Disneyland. For the fun story, read the Public Books version; for tech details and the "why" of my choices, read on here)."
timdiggerm 4y ago
Surely the solution is to just not go to Disney
- yurodivuie 4y ago
  Wait till you hear about grocery stores.
  - asdff 4y ago
    Or roads
- jsf 4y ago
  Where’s the fun in that?
atestu 4y ago
> Starting before my kids were born, I made sure no private companies collected traceable data about them—at least, nothing that could be aggregated across services or platforms to identify them or to target me as a mom. I bought everything—from pregnancy tests to diapers to clothes—in cash. At home, I built up an entire alternative tech ecosystem: privacy-oriented browsers and blockers, firewalled machines and accounts, and multiple concurrent email addresses. I’ve never even swiped a credit card or a discount card for children’s goods at the till. It’s been nine years and counting, and I have yet to see a single ad for diapers, daycare, or summer camp. I love my privacy and my kids' but I don't understand this extreme behavior... She is worried that companies know she has kids? Can't they just pull public records to see that? Or read this article published under her full name with attached social media profiles? Personally I don't want to be tracked by Disney in the real world, but wouldn't mind it inside the park. Or, like another commenter pointed, just don't go. Disney will track you with or without a band (isn't every square inch of the place under CCTV?)
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- volleygman180 4y ago
  The author seems a bit too paranoid, if you ask me. I stopped reading the article when they mentioned that “Disneyland.com didn’t work on Tor”
  - coyotespike 4y ago
    I'm with both of you. I was an early ProtonMail and ProtonVPN supporter and for years would only chat to family members over Signal. I'm conscious of how my phone can track me and of the benefits of using cash. But I still can't see how avoiding Disney tracking is for her kids' "safety". The Mouse doesn't loom so large in my mind. And I can't judge family members for making the judgment call that they don't really care what Facebook and Google collect about their online activity.
    - ploum 4y ago
dom96 4y ago
Great article. Some curiosities: > The names on the tickets don’t have to match any government-issued ID, Allison explained. This probably doesn't extend to hotel bookings, so if you're travelling to Disney (which many families are) and staying on property you're kinda screwed, no? Even if you're not staying on property you still need to give you details to some company. > Still, there’s simply no way to avoid pulling your mask down for portrait photos at the gate. That’s simply “for your safety,” Allison intoned. Portrait photos at the gate? Does Disney require children to get a photo attached to their ticket so they can be found if lost? As a side note: I created https://mousetrack.co.uk https://mousetrack.co.uk to track prices of the tickets and hotels at Disneyworld. Hopefully me gathering this data can be considered a way to fight back against their data gathering.
- dghlsakjg 4y ago
  In the US, you generally only need to provide the ID/name of one person responsible for booking. A lot of hotels don't really even push verifying the id too hard as long as they have a credit card on file. As an American it is always jarring to me when I travel and I get my passport photocopied/details taken at a hotel. Disney might have a different policy, but hotels generally don't register children or more than one guest in my experience. Until the last few years you didn't even need ID to fly in the US The portrait photos at the gate for finding lost kids are a great idea. But only if Disney is very clear that the portrait is only retained for the time the ticket is valid, and then deleted. The problem is that most companies in the US basically retain the right to do whatever they want with your data even if they only plan to use it in a very limited fashion. If only there were a law that required them to enumerate specifically how your data gets used...
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    >As an American it is always jarring to me when I travel and I get my passport photocopied/details taken at a hotel. To clarify, it is not like hotels outside the US have fun gathering the info, in many countries it is required by Law to transmit info about guests (including children) to the Police.
- 4y ago
xnacly 4y ago
Thats some dedication, i applaud the author for keeping her kids private
andrew_eu 4y ago
I spent the majority of the last 30 years in Florida, and the theme parks were a regular past time. Disney World, but also Busch Gardens Tampa, SeaWorld, and Universal. All of them have gone down this path, though Disney is probably the most insidious. At the other parks, even with a paper ticket, your fingerprint is scanned to prevent people from sharing tickets. Disney used to do this too, but they stopped a few years ago. I didn't pay much mind to it, but the article reminded me: they can just use facial recognition. Visiting Disney parks without using the app is a distinctly inferior experience. This is no accident. It isn't possible anymore to book a dining reservation sans app, likewise to check queue times (unless you walk to the ride entrance), likewise fastpasses. The app is more convenient, but only because they actively make the parks less convenient. The quality of the rides, the scenery, the staff/cast, and the mis en scene have all been slowly degrading over the past 10+ years or so. Despite that, prices nearly doubled I think.
- jaywalk 4y ago
  Disney World still does fingerprint scans. I think they paused it for a while due to Covid, but it's definitely in place today.
- flutas 4y ago
  > It isn't possible anymore to book a dining reservation sans app The website? [0] > likewise to check queue times (unless you walk to the ride entrance) There's giant digital signage around the park with wait times? [1] > likewise fastpasses Don't exist anymore, but correct (except for CS options in the park) for the new paid version. Previously you could get them at kiosks around the park. > The quality of the rides, the scenery, the staff/cast, and the mis en scene have all been slowly degrading over the past 10+ years or so. Fully agree. [0]: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/#/reservations-accepted/ https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/#/reservations-acce... [1]: https://www.micechat.com/247615-disneyland-update-the-resistance-rises/img_5148-4/ https://www.micechat.com/247615-disneyland-update-the-resist...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
chaostheory 4y ago
What the author doesn’t realize is that both data collection and tracking are responsible for one of the best Disney amusement park innovations in years: minimizing the wait in lines. I would rather walk around and enjoy things with an app telling me when to wait in line as opposed to being trapped in a giant and never ending queue all day. Disney parks have always been a mass surveillance zone for decades in the name of safety and security, regardless of whether or not you opt into their modern tech. If you don’t like it, don’t go to their parks.
- ok123456 4y ago
  Scheduling amusement park rides through an app seems like a new circle of hell.
  - eddieroger 4y ago
    Some people, like me, really like to plan. It's nice to know I can walk up to a ride and get on it in a few minutes rather than rush a park and hope to get in early enough that I don't lose my whole morning to waiting in line for ten minute attraction. To me, that kinda sounds like a new circle of hell, but to each their own.
    - misterprime 4y ago
      Similar result, but different route for me: Planning, I hate: "I'm using this time and energy to figure out how I'm going to use my time and energy." Waiting in line, I hate even more: "I want to do something and am delayed due to these other people that want to do the same thing." Using an app to avoid lines sounds like a good solution.
  - hoosieree 4y ago
    "It's like Uber, but for waiting in line"
  - asdff 4y ago
    OTOH its convenient. Say you live in socal with a pass and want to ride the new ride with a virtual queue. You can just sit on your couch at home and see if you get in the queue and if its even worth it to go to the park that day. If they didn't have that system, it would be a crapshoot and probably like a 2 hour wait. This way you can estimate when you need to be there and can basically walk on. Then if you want food, once again, turn to the app, schedule a pickup window when you are going to be over there, hit a button on the app, walk up and grab it, versus waiting in line.
wellthisisgreat 4y ago
Stopped reading after "extreme approach to data-privacy" especially that it's presented as some kind of virtue and not a borderline dysfunctional quirk.
- ploum 4y ago
  Do you realize how far we have come if not wanting to install an app that track your movements/voices/actions on your phone and not wanting pictures of your children in shady databases is seen as "dysfunctional quirk" ? 15 years ago, when working in the automotive industry, I made the prototype of a GPS feature that would record your travels and use simple AI techniques to predict your next destination. Prototype was working really fine (all was done onboard, not connection to external servers). When I first demoed it, upper-management told me that "no one will ever agree to have a car that record your travels. That’s too creepy!" That was 2008. This is exactly the point of such articles and experiments: demonstrating how creepy the world become and how people pointing it are seen as the weirdos.
  - wellthisisgreat 4y ago
    Sure, my sentiment in regards to “extreme data privacy” is that the world has an evolved and there are more benefits to the new lack of privacy than downsides overall. I loathe the “real name policy” introduced by Facebook for the internet but can’t close my eyes to the fact that I am also benefitting from all that tracking as an individual and in business. As a [thought] experiment I am ok following even a medieval way of life for a week to see what the difference is, I just wouldn’t present it as a virtue. The pro-privacy stance is great and helps everyone, the extreme pro-privacy stance is akin to using burner phones for everything despite not being involved in any activities that truly require that level of opsec. It’s quirky, borderline comical and provides little insight into how to deal with current state of normalcy
    - ploum 4y ago
      I feel you are not really understanding the point privacy advocates are trying to make. Yes, you feel that you benefit from less privacy now in the current context. Using a burner phone only when something should be really hidden is like having a red light on your face. The point to not share any data voluntarly is that you never know when you will truly want to hide something. You don’t decide what is good and what is bad. What is happening with anti-abortion asking women to share the period data should be enough of an example. The big point about privacy is also that it is not a personal choice. As soon as someone write about her personal choice of "not disclosing any private data", she’s seen as a weirdo. Proving one major point: you don’t really have the choice anymore. You must share your data. You have no control about who access your data. And as Trump demonstrated, any country is one inch away of switching to a government where each of your data can be used against you. Sounds paranoid? Well, the bad news is that most people perceived as paranoid about that subject in the last 40 years were not even close to imagine what we currently have.
mfwit 4y ago
The modern Disney Parks have a myriad of problems and one of them is definitely the insistence that guests utilize apps, etc but not because of the absolute paranoia outlined here.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  For my personal curiosity, roughly which decade were you born? Am I getting old? It was (obviously) previously possible to visit Disneyland without this sort of antics, so I don't think the problem lies with the author. It's more like the author is demonstrating to what ends you need to go to maintain a modicum of privacy.
dangus 4y ago
Living this way sounds exhausting. Using fake names, putting on facial recognition-defeating face paint, using burner phones to go to a theme park... Once these kids move out on their own they're going to have a hard time adjusting to the rest of society's social norms in the same way that homeschooled, extremely religious, or children raised in other socially or technologically isolated ways have to adjust as the real world suddenly hits them outside of the influence of their parents. A mild example of this is the disparity between 90s kids who grew up with and without cable. The ones who grew up without it have an entire set of pop culture references that are completely unheard of to them. It's not really a big deal or anything, but it's a good analogy. Disney just wants to sell you shit and manage the flow of traffic in the busiest theme parks in the world. They're not trying to generate your social credit score to forward to the draconian authoritarian governments of the world. Plus, you can do everything right and your bank or credit agency might still leak your personal info in a breach like Equifax and Capital One.
- bmacho 4y ago
  > Disney just wants to sell you shit and manage the flow of traffic in the busiest theme parks in the world. > They're not trying to generate your social credit score to forward to the draconian authoritarian governments of the world. Well, they will, their databases will end up on the dark net, also will be used by the governments in your social credit score.
dang 4y ago
Recent and related: Data-Free Disneyland - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 - Feb 2023 (211 comments)
hardsoftnfloppy 4y ago
[dead]

109 points by docdeek 4y ago

They collect data because they see a business benefit. The only things which can change that will be regulation or people changing their spending habits. Spending money at their parks isn't going to change anything.

foxbee 4y ago

> The kids met their Pixar heroes and had a lightsaber duel with Chewbacca. Meanwhile, I was riding high on my own personal “spy-versus-spy” adventure the whole day. It's critical to always have a secret mission on these occasions. Great, fun read!

birdman3131 4y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 was the companion discussion. To quote the author. "(Note: This is the companion post to my article at Public Books about evading data detection at Disneyland. For the fun story, read the Public Books version; for tech details and the "why" of my choices, read on here)."

timdiggerm 4y ago

Surely the solution is to just not go to Disney

yurodivuie 4y ago
Wait till you hear about grocery stores.
- asdff 4y ago
  Or roads
jsf 4y ago
Where’s the fun in that?

atestu 4y ago

> Starting before my kids were born, I made sure no private companies collected traceable data about them—at least, nothing that could be aggregated across services or platforms to identify them or to target me as a mom. I bought everything—from pregnancy tests to diapers to clothes—in cash. At home, I built up an entire alternative tech ecosystem: privacy-oriented browsers and blockers, firewalled machines and accounts, and multiple concurrent email addresses. I’ve never even swiped a credit card or a discount card for children’s goods at the till. It’s been nine years and counting, and I have yet to see a single ad for diapers, daycare, or summer camp. I love my privacy and my kids' but I don't understand this extreme behavior... She is worried that companies know she has kids? Can't they just pull public records to see that? Or read this article published under her full name with attached social media profiles? Personally I don't want to be tracked by Disney in the real world, but wouldn't mind it inside the park. Or, like another commenter pointed, just don't go. Disney will track you with or without a band (isn't every square inch of the place under CCTV?)

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
volleygman180 4y ago
The author seems a bit too paranoid, if you ask me. I stopped reading the article when they mentioned that “Disneyland.com didn’t work on Tor”
- coyotespike 4y ago
  I'm with both of you. I was an early ProtonMail and ProtonVPN supporter and for years would only chat to family members over Signal. I'm conscious of how my phone can track me and of the benefits of using cash. But I still can't see how avoiding Disney tracking is for her kids' "safety". The Mouse doesn't loom so large in my mind. And I can't judge family members for making the judgment call that they don't really care what Facebook and Google collect about their online activity.
  - ploum 4y ago

dom96 4y ago

Great article. Some curiosities: > The names on the tickets don’t have to match any government-issued ID, Allison explained. This probably doesn't extend to hotel bookings, so if you're travelling to Disney (which many families are) and staying on property you're kinda screwed, no? Even if you're not staying on property you still need to give you details to some company. > Still, there’s simply no way to avoid pulling your mask down for portrait photos at the gate. That’s simply “for your safety,” Allison intoned. Portrait photos at the gate? Does Disney require children to get a photo attached to their ticket so they can be found if lost? As a side note: I created https://mousetrack.co.uk https://mousetrack.co.uk to track prices of the tickets and hotels at Disneyworld. Hopefully me gathering this data can be considered a way to fight back against their data gathering.

dghlsakjg 4y ago
In the US, you generally only need to provide the ID/name of one person responsible for booking. A lot of hotels don't really even push verifying the id too hard as long as they have a credit card on file. As an American it is always jarring to me when I travel and I get my passport photocopied/details taken at a hotel. Disney might have a different policy, but hotels generally don't register children or more than one guest in my experience. Until the last few years you didn't even need ID to fly in the US The portrait photos at the gate for finding lost kids are a great idea. But only if Disney is very clear that the portrait is only retained for the time the ticket is valid, and then deleted. The problem is that most companies in the US basically retain the right to do whatever they want with your data even if they only plan to use it in a very limited fashion. If only there were a law that required them to enumerate specifically how your data gets used...
- jaclaz 4y ago
  >As an American it is always jarring to me when I travel and I get my passport photocopied/details taken at a hotel. To clarify, it is not like hotels outside the US have fun gathering the info, in many countries it is required by Law to transmit info about guests (including children) to the Police.
4y ago

xnacly 4y ago

Thats some dedication, i applaud the author for keeping her kids private

andrew_eu 4y ago

I spent the majority of the last 30 years in Florida, and the theme parks were a regular past time. Disney World, but also Busch Gardens Tampa, SeaWorld, and Universal. All of them have gone down this path, though Disney is probably the most insidious. At the other parks, even with a paper ticket, your fingerprint is scanned to prevent people from sharing tickets. Disney used to do this too, but they stopped a few years ago. I didn't pay much mind to it, but the article reminded me: they can just use facial recognition. Visiting Disney parks without using the app is a distinctly inferior experience. This is no accident. It isn't possible anymore to book a dining reservation sans app, likewise to check queue times (unless you walk to the ride entrance), likewise fastpasses. The app is more convenient, but only because they actively make the parks less convenient. The quality of the rides, the scenery, the staff/cast, and the mis en scene have all been slowly degrading over the past 10+ years or so. Despite that, prices nearly doubled I think.

jaywalk 4y ago
Disney World still does fingerprint scans. I think they paused it for a while due to Covid, but it's definitely in place today.
flutas 4y ago
> It isn't possible anymore to book a dining reservation sans app The website? [0] > likewise to check queue times (unless you walk to the ride entrance) There's giant digital signage around the park with wait times? [1] > likewise fastpasses Don't exist anymore, but correct (except for CS options in the park) for the new paid version. Previously you could get them at kiosks around the park. > The quality of the rides, the scenery, the staff/cast, and the mis en scene have all been slowly degrading over the past 10+ years or so. Fully agree. [0]: https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/#/reservations-accepted/ https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/dining/#/reservations-acce... [1]: https://www.micechat.com/247615-disneyland-update-the-resistance-rises/img_5148-4/ https://www.micechat.com/247615-disneyland-update-the-resist...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

chaostheory 4y ago

What the author doesn’t realize is that both data collection and tracking are responsible for one of the best Disney amusement park innovations in years: minimizing the wait in lines. I would rather walk around and enjoy things with an app telling me when to wait in line as opposed to being trapped in a giant and never ending queue all day. Disney parks have always been a mass surveillance zone for decades in the name of safety and security, regardless of whether or not you opt into their modern tech. If you don’t like it, don’t go to their parks.

ok123456 4y ago
Scheduling amusement park rides through an app seems like a new circle of hell.
- eddieroger 4y ago
  Some people, like me, really like to plan. It's nice to know I can walk up to a ride and get on it in a few minutes rather than rush a park and hope to get in early enough that I don't lose my whole morning to waiting in line for ten minute attraction. To me, that kinda sounds like a new circle of hell, but to each their own.
  - misterprime 4y ago
    Similar result, but different route for me: Planning, I hate: "I'm using this time and energy to figure out how I'm going to use my time and energy." Waiting in line, I hate even more: "I want to do something and am delayed due to these other people that want to do the same thing." Using an app to avoid lines sounds like a good solution.
- hoosieree 4y ago
  "It's like Uber, but for waiting in line"
- asdff 4y ago
  OTOH its convenient. Say you live in socal with a pass and want to ride the new ride with a virtual queue. You can just sit on your couch at home and see if you get in the queue and if its even worth it to go to the park that day. If they didn't have that system, it would be a crapshoot and probably like a 2 hour wait. This way you can estimate when you need to be there and can basically walk on. Then if you want food, once again, turn to the app, schedule a pickup window when you are going to be over there, hit a button on the app, walk up and grab it, versus waiting in line.

wellthisisgreat 4y ago

Stopped reading after "extreme approach to data-privacy" especially that it's presented as some kind of virtue and not a borderline dysfunctional quirk.

ploum 4y ago
Do you realize how far we have come if not wanting to install an app that track your movements/voices/actions on your phone and not wanting pictures of your children in shady databases is seen as "dysfunctional quirk" ? 15 years ago, when working in the automotive industry, I made the prototype of a GPS feature that would record your travels and use simple AI techniques to predict your next destination. Prototype was working really fine (all was done onboard, not connection to external servers). When I first demoed it, upper-management told me that "no one will ever agree to have a car that record your travels. That’s too creepy!" That was 2008. This is exactly the point of such articles and experiments: demonstrating how creepy the world become and how people pointing it are seen as the weirdos.
- wellthisisgreat 4y ago
  Sure, my sentiment in regards to “extreme data privacy” is that the world has an evolved and there are more benefits to the new lack of privacy than downsides overall. I loathe the “real name policy” introduced by Facebook for the internet but can’t close my eyes to the fact that I am also benefitting from all that tracking as an individual and in business. As a [thought] experiment I am ok following even a medieval way of life for a week to see what the difference is, I just wouldn’t present it as a virtue. The pro-privacy stance is great and helps everyone, the extreme pro-privacy stance is akin to using burner phones for everything despite not being involved in any activities that truly require that level of opsec. It’s quirky, borderline comical and provides little insight into how to deal with current state of normalcy
  - ploum 4y ago
    I feel you are not really understanding the point privacy advocates are trying to make. Yes, you feel that you benefit from less privacy now in the current context. Using a burner phone only when something should be really hidden is like having a red light on your face. The point to not share any data voluntarly is that you never know when you will truly want to hide something. You don’t decide what is good and what is bad. What is happening with anti-abortion asking women to share the period data should be enough of an example. The big point about privacy is also that it is not a personal choice. As soon as someone write about her personal choice of "not disclosing any private data", she’s seen as a weirdo. Proving one major point: you don’t really have the choice anymore. You must share your data. You have no control about who access your data. And as Trump demonstrated, any country is one inch away of switching to a government where each of your data can be used against you. Sounds paranoid? Well, the bad news is that most people perceived as paranoid about that subject in the last 40 years were not even close to imagine what we currently have.

mfwit 4y ago

The modern Disney Parks have a myriad of problems and one of them is definitely the insistence that guests utilize apps, etc but not because of the absolute paranoia outlined here.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Kim_Bruning 4y ago
For my personal curiosity, roughly which decade were you born? Am I getting old? It was (obviously) previously possible to visit Disneyland without this sort of antics, so I don't think the problem lies with the author. It's more like the author is demonstrating to what ends you need to go to maintain a modicum of privacy.

dangus 4y ago

Living this way sounds exhausting. Using fake names, putting on facial recognition-defeating face paint, using burner phones to go to a theme park... Once these kids move out on their own they're going to have a hard time adjusting to the rest of society's social norms in the same way that homeschooled, extremely religious, or children raised in other socially or technologically isolated ways have to adjust as the real world suddenly hits them outside of the influence of their parents. A mild example of this is the disparity between 90s kids who grew up with and without cable. The ones who grew up without it have an entire set of pop culture references that are completely unheard of to them. It's not really a big deal or anything, but it's a good analogy. Disney just wants to sell you shit and manage the flow of traffic in the busiest theme parks in the world. They're not trying to generate your social credit score to forward to the draconian authoritarian governments of the world. Plus, you can do everything right and your bank or credit agency might still leak your personal info in a breach like Equifax and Capital One.

bmacho 4y ago
> Disney just wants to sell you shit and manage the flow of traffic in the busiest theme parks in the world. > They're not trying to generate your social credit score to forward to the draconian authoritarian governments of the world. Well, they will, their databases will end up on the dark net, also will be used by the governments in your social credit score.

dang 4y ago

Recent and related: Data-Free Disneyland - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34612732 - Feb 2023 (211 comments)

hardsoftnfloppy 4y ago

[dead]