There were reports today that Disneyland has begun taking photos of guests entering the theme park and associating those images with their admission media. The need to combat fraud inspired the move.
Un-authorized ticket resellers have been building multi-day tickets and then renting out smaller portions of the ticket. The guest saves on single day tickets and the reseller makes a profit by still charging more than the discount. While it may not violate the law, it violates Disney’s policies and they’re taking action to enforce the one ticket-one person rule.
Disneyland has been associating photos with annual passes for some time. A photo is taken when the pass is purchased and it appears on a little screen at the turnstile. The faces have to match or the guest is questioned further. It sounds like these photos were taken right at the entrance gate and associated with the ticket. This is bound to slow down the queue some depending on what percentage of guests in front of you are using their multi-day ticket for the first time.
What do you think of this new policy at Disneyland. Have you ever used a ticket reseller before to save a few bucks? How did that work out?
Walt Disney World is trying to speed up entry to the park by adding Next Gen features at the gate. Why would Disneyland take a step back and make it harder to get in?
I went to Disneyland Hong Kong recently and the people in front of me were getting their thumbprints scanned. Not sure if it was an annual or multi-day pass, but I think that would actually be faster than the picture aspect.
Of course, in North America a certain percentage of people would no doubt cry foul.
WDW has taken finger scans for annual pass holders in previous years. Not sure if they are still doing that or not.
WDW takes fingerprints for every ticket now.
WDW has finger scanners for multi-day ticket holders. My boyfriend and I switched tickets to see if they really worked… they do!
Because Disneyland has a large number of passes with photos – estimated by some watchers as over a million…a transfer of data will be quite tremendous. Also the photos are no longer taken at the time the pass is purchased. Annual passholders are asked to see any Disney photographer and they will connect the annual pass with the photo they are taking. Annual passes also serve as photopasses as well. Because most visitors to Disneyland Resort do not stay at a Disney resort, having the ability to include room keys is more than what is needed for the average Disneyland resort visitor.
Yes, all adult pass holders have fingerprints scanned… At least for the past 2 years I’ve held a pass.
At Disney world….. Sorry for leaving that part out!
I think it is a bummer for the families who cannot afford a AP or the high ticket price but I understand where Disney is coming from. NextGen program seems like a great idea but there is still somethings I do not like about it. The use of RFID is great and I think it should be all over the park instead of a plastic card. NextGen is to roll out in DLR for 2014 after they observe WDW using the system.
Bottom line Disney is still a business and all businesses want their money..
For years, Disney has recorded onto tickets the geometry and shape of visitors’ fingers to prevent ticket fraud or resale, as an alternative to time-consuming photo identification checks. Contrary to the belief of many, the “scans” of the fingers are not collecting fingerprints. It is scanning 5 points of the finger to establish density. It does not differentiate between the many unique features of a fingerprint called minutia (pronounced Min-Nu-Sha) that make up the patterns. To identify a person, most law enforcement agencies prefer a minimum of 20+ minutia. Many AFIS machines, such as a Live Scan system, can derive 100+ minutia in an “A” grade print of high quality. It would be technically unlawful for them to collect and store fingerprints to identify individuals without a directive from a law enforcement entity. The directive from DHS for airline to fingerprint individuals of foreign nationality as they exit the country is even being challenged for it legality. There biometric readers on many of our computers that allow us to log simple low quality scans of our fingers to allow access to our computers and many secure facilities use them to provide access, however it doesn’t store a complete set of prints to realistically identify someone.
I had the pleasure (if thats what you want to call it) of waiting in line to get into Disneyland this past friday for 20 mins while they scanned tickets and took picture of people at the gate. I said to the worker at the gate it would be amazing if you had a gate just for Annual Passholders, the reply given to me was if we did that the line would be 90% of the guest coming into the park. I found that hard to believe but my reply back was you should at least be doing the photos are the ticket booths not the turn styles. Just for laughs the main gate line was the longest line i stood in that day with space mountain being only 15 mins. Chalk another great Idea up for the people who are running crowd control at the Disneyland Resort.
I have to think this was an improvement over the previous weekend when I visited. At that time, anyone with a multi-day pass had to pull out and show photo ID each time they entered, which caught me (and most other new people) off guard. The first time the pass was used, the cast member at the gate had to type the name in from the ID so it could be printed on the ticket. Then they scanned the ticket and checked that the photo ID and name matched. If you were reentering the park, they did all of that and then checked for a hand-stamp. I was actually wondering why they didn’t go back to printing a photo on the mutli-day tickets like they used to at Disney World, since taking a picture the first time actually sounds faster to me.
i was appalled and angry when disney workers pulled us out of line, demanded us to line up and remove our hats so they could photograph us. i am a former annaul passholder and didnt mind having our photo taken for our annual pass, BUT i expected that. the deamnd for a photo AT THE GATE after purchasing tickets (nothing was said about the new requirement when we puchased tickets, we were only told we might need to show our photo ID, which we had). If we had been told of this policy before we bought tickets fine (I think it is stupid policy becasue it treats every guest like a criminal). If told when i bought tickets, i could have decided BEFORE i bought airfare, prepaid a hotel, and paid for a rental car how much the polcy bother me. But Disney told us AFTER all of those expenses were paid for that if we did not comply we would be denied entrance, even though we paid for the tickets BEFORE that policy was defined. All Disney employees we complained to were rude and dismissive. What a stupid way to treat loyal customers (i am 51 and have been a disney fan since i was 8, but no more). Oh, and their system is poorly managed, we had to have our pictures taken multiple times becasue not all gate terminals could access our photos (downtown disney monorail could not access photos but maingate could). And no, i have never purchased tickets from resellers, always direct from disney. I dont disagree that disney has a right to manage tickets the way they see fit, what i am angry about is 1) they changed the policy AFTER we bought tickets (or didnt inform us of the policy when we purchased tickets) and 2) the way they treated us at the gate (like criminals being arrested and having a booking photo taken).
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