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Mickey Mouse is watching you: Disneyland deploys facial recognition

90 points by Cider9986 6mo ago

onetokeoverthe 6mo ago
[dead]
ktallett 6mo ago
Ugh! How much fraud occurs at Disneyland? I would be shocked if there isn't a third reason they are not making clear. We desperately need to put up a fight early on with this technology as it's unreliable and just not needed, and it will only cause negatives long term. For anyone who says but it won't be an issue for many; well that's the exact status quo we have now, so it's really only to get worse overall.
- doublerabbit 6mo ago
  It's a scape goat. I am sure fraud does happen at the park but this now more "won't someone think of the children" but replace children with fraud. Ironic when Disney itself is fraudulent. It's more than likely they're collecting civilian data for other means and/or for money.
  - cybercatgurrl 6mo ago
    i’m sure they’re gonna be selling the data of exactly which shops and rides you went to and for how long
  - dangus 6mo ago
    If it only happens 1% of the time that’s SO much money. 50,000 guests per day, let’s say average person is spending $200 in a day…if 1% of them are doing some kind of entrance fraud you’re looking at $36.5 million dollars per year.
    - Geezus_42 6mo ago
      Which is pennies for a company the size of Disney.
      - dangus 6mo ago
        Pennies become dollars pretty quickly. MBAs get criticized a lot for making these "0.1%" type of decisions but they do it because they all add up. 1% here, 0.3% there, add them all together and it becomes significant.
    - tstenner 6mo ago
      You can make this claim for any larger number by asserting a base rate of 1% without evidence.
      - dangus 6mo ago
        Change the number how you want, even 0.1% is still millions of dollars. I'm not claiming the real number is 1% and I thought that should have been obvious.
        tstenner 6mo ago
        At 0.1% (which still seems high) you lose out on the entrance fee but still get paid for food, drinks, memorabilia etc. Compare that to the cost for the system and the negative publicity and I'm not sure it's worth it (unless they have another motive they don't want to admit)
        dangus 6mo ago
        You’re allowed to bring in snacks to Disney parks. Pretty much any food that doesn’t need refrigeration is okay to bring. Water is free. You can absolutely ride rides and spend nothing and consume the lines of paying customers. I imagine if you’re willing to try to get in for free or share your pass among multiple people against park rules you’re the kind of person motivated to avoid spending money. Also, someone who makes the company money and is breaking rules is still not worth keeping as a customer. If someone spends $1000 at the Mickey Mouse gift they don’t get a pass to break other rules of the grounds just because they were profitable.
- qwerpy 6mo ago
  Annual pass sharing is widespread in the immigrant community my family is a part of. I’ve half jokingly advised them to pull the race card if they ever get caught. “How dare you imply we all look the same?”
  - malfist 6mo ago
    [flagged]
  - dhosek 6mo ago
    I would guess that it’s very much a pass-sharing thing—I’ve noticed that the level of security around passes has increased a great deal over the past 30ish years. In 2000, a Disneyworld Pass had no expiration date and was simply labeled by gender. In 2023, the same pass was date limited and had a photograph of the passholder digitally associated with it.
  - ungreased0675 6mo ago
    My local zoo has a name on the annual pass and requires an ID with the pass to enter. Seems robust enough?
    - Gigachad 6mo ago
      That’s robust but slow. Facial recognition doesn’t add any delay.
      - ktallett 6mo ago
        Considering facial recognition is rather bias with certain ethnicities it will just be inaccurate and fast, so still not solving the issue in full.
        Gigachad 6mo ago
        It doesn’t need to be solved in full. If the system gives a false negative, someone gets in for free, if it gives a false positive, they get their name on their ID checked. Both of these are fine failure modes. And the bulk of people walk on through without manual checks slowing it down. Anti fraud stuff is more about saving more in losses than it costs to implement. Rather than preventing even a single person from slipping through without paying.
- VitaminReality 6mo ago
  [dead]
- IncreasePosts 6mo ago
  I'm positive there are thousands of people banned from Disney parks for good reason - how else can Disney enforce those bans at their scale (150 million visitors per year)?
  - monksy 6mo ago
    I'm finding it hard to be empathetic towards an ultra large business with that many customers trying to enforce bans. Also, I find it difficult to support the bans. (Given the number of customers they have, they're probably overly lenient on banning)
    - IncreasePosts 6mo ago
      People have been banned from disney for stealing in the park, fighting in the park, molesting or assaulting employees in the park. It's better for everyone to keep those people out
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - ktallett 6mo ago
    How did they do it the rest of the time before inaccurate facial recognition came into fruition?
    - IncreasePosts 6mo ago
      Probably by only looking out for the worst of the worst and letting other people slip by
tintor 6mo ago
Next: Netflix deploys facial recognition, to prevent account sharing fraud.
monksy 6mo ago
It's super creepy how this garbage gets rolled out. The value proposition of going to these parks is "have fun and enjoy this." But if you bought a pass and then you found out you'd have to go through this.. what do you do? The annoyed and condescending employee will grief you into complying. There are many ways to solve this problem, but this approach is the most friendly to the owners. This is a hard no for me to consider giving that mouse money.
trunkiedozer 6mo ago
There’s a big wall around the park too.
dangus 6mo ago
This seems reasonable. They seem to be implementing this technology with hashes [1] and they are deleting the data within 30 days. Some more things to consider: - Walt Disney World has already been using fingerprints to verify access card and person match so you don’t share entrance passes for many years. - You are already on private property in a setting with no expectation of privacy. - Disney has been recording guests on security cameras since before the digital era. Your ride vehicle is always in sight of active video surveillance for ride safety purposes. You have been tracked in various ways inside the property for years and that’s not that crazy, again, considering you’re on private property. - Universal Studios also uses entry photography likely for the exact same purpose This is all not to say that these things being normalized doesn’t make them right but, still, I think it’s very not new stuff here. This in my opinion seems like the exact kind of environment where this kind of thing is reasonable. They’ve basically been doing all of this already and the only difference now is that it’s used specifically for entrance gate purposes. [1] from Disney’s statement linked within the article: > These entrance lanes: (1) use images of your face taken by a camera at the entrance and the image of your face that was saved when you first used the ticket or pass; (2) employ biometric technology to convert those images into unique numerical values; (3) compare the numerical values to find a match; and (4) except in cases where data must be maintained for legal or fraud-prevention purposes, delete all numerical values within 30 days of creation. Participation is optional. Entrance lanes that do not employ facial recognition technology are also available.
- HDBaseT 6mo ago
  "In a setting with no expectation of privacy" This line of thinking is outdated. That sort of phrase was coined before the advent of data tracking agencies, ad agencies, digital cameras, unlimited video and audio retention. I understand I cannot expect complete privacy from another individual on the street, although a random person seeing me and being recorded, tracked, analzyed and then targeted via ads and used in AI training is a different sort of privacy violation in my opinion. I don't see why we can't or shouldn't expect companies to not employe privacy raping technology just because we are out in "public". "This in my opinion seems like the exact kind of environment where this kind of thing is reasonable." Why? Disneyland first opening in 1955, for 50 years they ran fine without cameras, facial recognition, etc. Are we forgetting not too long ago we lived in a world without all of this and we were perfectly fine? The common cop outs like "crime" and "abuse" will occur if cameras didn't exist are stupid. Crime is significantly higher now, despite 24/7 surveillance and tracking. We are also kidding ourselves if we think they are ONLY using it for protection. All this data is fed straight into 900+ shell companies (many of which are ramps for the feds).
petterroea 6mo ago
It always starts with optional opt-out
retrochameleon 6mo ago
Big casinos have been doing the same thing for a long time. At the end of the day, the casino world and the tightly controlled and manicured Disney theme park world don't seem all that different.
musicale 6mo ago
So they're punishing everyone - even people with regular tickets - for pass fraud / unauthorized sharing. I think I would be willing to pay extra to opt out of creepy face scanning.

90 points by Cider9986 6mo ago

[dead]

Ugh! How much fraud occurs at Disneyland? I would be shocked if there isn't a third reason they are not making clear. We desperately need to put up a fight early on with this technology as it's unreliable and just not needed, and it will only cause negatives long term. For anyone who says but it won't be an issue for many; well that's the exact status quo we have now, so it's really only to get worse overall.

doublerabbit 6mo ago
It's a scape goat. I am sure fraud does happen at the park but this now more "won't someone think of the children" but replace children with fraud. Ironic when Disney itself is fraudulent. It's more than likely they're collecting civilian data for other means and/or for money.
- cybercatgurrl 6mo ago
  i’m sure they’re gonna be selling the data of exactly which shops and rides you went to and for how long
- dangus 6mo ago
  If it only happens 1% of the time that’s SO much money. 50,000 guests per day, let’s say average person is spending $200 in a day…if 1% of them are doing some kind of entrance fraud you’re looking at $36.5 million dollars per year.
  - Geezus_42 6mo ago
    Which is pennies for a company the size of Disney.
    - dangus 6mo ago
      Pennies become dollars pretty quickly. MBAs get criticized a lot for making these "0.1%" type of decisions but they do it because they all add up. 1% here, 0.3% there, add them all together and it becomes significant.
  - tstenner 6mo ago
    You can make this claim for any larger number by asserting a base rate of 1% without evidence.
    - dangus 6mo ago
      Change the number how you want, even 0.1% is still millions of dollars. I'm not claiming the real number is 1% and I thought that should have been obvious.
      - tstenner 6mo ago
        At 0.1% (which still seems high) you lose out on the entrance fee but still get paid for food, drinks, memorabilia etc. Compare that to the cost for the system and the negative publicity and I'm not sure it's worth it (unless they have another motive they don't want to admit)
        dangus 6mo ago
        You’re allowed to bring in snacks to Disney parks. Pretty much any food that doesn’t need refrigeration is okay to bring. Water is free. You can absolutely ride rides and spend nothing and consume the lines of paying customers. I imagine if you’re willing to try to get in for free or share your pass among multiple people against park rules you’re the kind of person motivated to avoid spending money. Also, someone who makes the company money and is breaking rules is still not worth keeping as a customer. If someone spends $1000 at the Mickey Mouse gift they don’t get a pass to break other rules of the grounds just because they were profitable.
qwerpy 6mo ago
Annual pass sharing is widespread in the immigrant community my family is a part of. I’ve half jokingly advised them to pull the race card if they ever get caught. “How dare you imply we all look the same?”
- malfist 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- dhosek 6mo ago
  I would guess that it’s very much a pass-sharing thing—I’ve noticed that the level of security around passes has increased a great deal over the past 30ish years. In 2000, a Disneyworld Pass had no expiration date and was simply labeled by gender. In 2023, the same pass was date limited and had a photograph of the passholder digitally associated with it.
- ungreased0675 6mo ago
  My local zoo has a name on the annual pass and requires an ID with the pass to enter. Seems robust enough?
  - Gigachad 6mo ago
    That’s robust but slow. Facial recognition doesn’t add any delay.
    - ktallett 6mo ago
      Considering facial recognition is rather bias with certain ethnicities it will just be inaccurate and fast, so still not solving the issue in full.
      - Gigachad 6mo ago
        It doesn’t need to be solved in full. If the system gives a false negative, someone gets in for free, if it gives a false positive, they get their name on their ID checked. Both of these are fine failure modes. And the bulk of people walk on through without manual checks slowing it down. Anti fraud stuff is more about saving more in losses than it costs to implement. Rather than preventing even a single person from slipping through without paying.
VitaminReality 6mo ago
[dead]
IncreasePosts 6mo ago
I'm positive there are thousands of people banned from Disney parks for good reason - how else can Disney enforce those bans at their scale (150 million visitors per year)?
- monksy 6mo ago
  I'm finding it hard to be empathetic towards an ultra large business with that many customers trying to enforce bans. Also, I find it difficult to support the bans. (Given the number of customers they have, they're probably overly lenient on banning)
  - IncreasePosts 6mo ago
    People have been banned from disney for stealing in the park, fighting in the park, molesting or assaulting employees in the park. It's better for everyone to keep those people out
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- ktallett 6mo ago
  How did they do it the rest of the time before inaccurate facial recognition came into fruition?
  - IncreasePosts 6mo ago
    Probably by only looking out for the worst of the worst and letting other people slip by

tintor 6mo ago

Next: Netflix deploys facial recognition, to prevent account sharing fraud.

monksy 6mo ago

It's super creepy how this garbage gets rolled out. The value proposition of going to these parks is "have fun and enjoy this." But if you bought a pass and then you found out you'd have to go through this.. what do you do? The annoyed and condescending employee will grief you into complying. There are many ways to solve this problem, but this approach is the most friendly to the owners. This is a hard no for me to consider giving that mouse money.

trunkiedozer 6mo ago

There’s a big wall around the park too.

dangus 6mo ago

This seems reasonable. They seem to be implementing this technology with hashes [1] and they are deleting the data within 30 days. Some more things to consider: - Walt Disney World has already been using fingerprints to verify access card and person match so you don’t share entrance passes for many years. - You are already on private property in a setting with no expectation of privacy. - Disney has been recording guests on security cameras since before the digital era. Your ride vehicle is always in sight of active video surveillance for ride safety purposes. You have been tracked in various ways inside the property for years and that’s not that crazy, again, considering you’re on private property. - Universal Studios also uses entry photography likely for the exact same purpose This is all not to say that these things being normalized doesn’t make them right but, still, I think it’s very not new stuff here. This in my opinion seems like the exact kind of environment where this kind of thing is reasonable. They’ve basically been doing all of this already and the only difference now is that it’s used specifically for entrance gate purposes. [1] from Disney’s statement linked within the article: > These entrance lanes: (1) use images of your face taken by a camera at the entrance and the image of your face that was saved when you first used the ticket or pass; (2) employ biometric technology to convert those images into unique numerical values; (3) compare the numerical values to find a match; and (4) except in cases where data must be maintained for legal or fraud-prevention purposes, delete all numerical values within 30 days of creation. Participation is optional. Entrance lanes that do not employ facial recognition technology are also available.

HDBaseT 6mo ago
"In a setting with no expectation of privacy" This line of thinking is outdated. That sort of phrase was coined before the advent of data tracking agencies, ad agencies, digital cameras, unlimited video and audio retention. I understand I cannot expect complete privacy from another individual on the street, although a random person seeing me and being recorded, tracked, analzyed and then targeted via ads and used in AI training is a different sort of privacy violation in my opinion. I don't see why we can't or shouldn't expect companies to not employe privacy raping technology just because we are out in "public". "This in my opinion seems like the exact kind of environment where this kind of thing is reasonable." Why? Disneyland first opening in 1955, for 50 years they ran fine without cameras, facial recognition, etc. Are we forgetting not too long ago we lived in a world without all of this and we were perfectly fine? The common cop outs like "crime" and "abuse" will occur if cameras didn't exist are stupid. Crime is significantly higher now, despite 24/7 surveillance and tracking. We are also kidding ourselves if we think they are ONLY using it for protection. All this data is fed straight into 900+ shell companies (many of which are ramps for the feds).

petterroea 6mo ago

It always starts with optional opt-out

retrochameleon 6mo ago

Big casinos have been doing the same thing for a long time. At the end of the day, the casino world and the tightly controlled and manicured Disney theme park world don't seem all that different.

musicale 6mo ago

So they're punishing everyone - even people with regular tickets - for pass fraud / unauthorized sharing. I think I would be willing to pay extra to opt out of creepy face scanning.