Disney has reportedly been hit with a five-million-dollar class action lawsuit accusing the company of violating privacy and consumer protection laws by using facial recognition technology at Disneyland that rolled out in April. The complaint is about guests having their faces photographed and compared to previous images of when they used their ticket or pass to make sure they are the same person.
Summer Christine Duffield filed the suit over privacy violations. One big issue is that people aren’t aware that this is happening to decline or opt out, according to the suit.
“Disneyland takes photos of daily visitors and annual passholders at park entrances and uses biometric technology to convert the images into unique numerical values. The biometric data compares the numerical values to find a facial match with the photo saved when a ticket or annual pass was first used. Disney deletes all biometric numerical values within 30 days, except in cases where the data must be maintained for legal or fraud-prevention purposes.”
“Disney does not adequately disclose the use of their biometric collection, so consumers — which almost always include children — have no idea that Disney is collecting this highly sensitive data. Guests should be able to expressly opt in to this type of sensitive facial recognition technology with written consent — the onus of privacy rights should not be on the victim.”
Disney tends to put all kinds of caveats into the fine print when you use their services and make little to no effort to ensure people understand or are aware of what they are doing. One example of this was the fine print when using Disney+, forcing customers to agree to binding arbitration instead of trial by jury.
The Orange County Register pointed out that both Disneyland Park and Disney California Adventure Park offer entrance lanes that do not use facial recognition.
Signs clearly mark this and explain the procedures.
“Disneyland and DCA offer front entrance lanes that do not use facial recognition software marked by overhead signs with a silhouetted person in a rounded square with a diagonal strikethrough.
Signs notifying visitors of the option were posted inside the security screening areas at the Disneyland resort parking structures and lots during the rollout of the high-tech security measure.”
Disney Spokesperson Jessica Jakary said that these claims are “without merit”
“We respect and protect our guests’ personal information and dispute the plaintiff’s claims, which we believe are without merit.”
Taking photos of guests is not new, at least not in Walt Disney World.
I can tell you that they have been deploying technology similar to this for a long time–at least when taking your picture for comparison.
Several years ago, our family was visiting the Walt Disney World Resort when my husband ran into an issue with his MagicBand or fingerprint not working.
A Cast Member came up to help and, using her iPad, pulled up all kinds of photos of my husband at various locations throughout our trip. I was standing behind her while she did it, even though she tried to block the screen.
I know for a FACT that Disney has been using images to compare guests and follow their movements at the parks, while faces were not scanned at entry, guests associated with their ticket/pass were photographed and cataloged because she retrieved images of my husband at the different parks on different days.
This may be worse because the entry face scans have signs indicating which lanes do so. We didn’t know that we were being photographed at all until the images were pulled up on the iPad.
Disney is not alone
Several arenas, sporting locations, and other theme park venues have been using the same types of facial recognition data on customers.
Right now, Disney is not making it mandatory at the entrance. The question is whether or not this will remain optional or will become required for guests to enter the parks.
What do you think? Comment and let us know!
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