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.
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)?
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)
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
How did they do it the rest of the time before inaccurate facial recognition came into fruition?
Probably by only looking out for the worst of the worst and letting other people slip by
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?”
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.
My local zoo has a name on the annual pass and requires an ID with the pass to enter. Seems robust enough?
That’s robust but slow. Facial recognition doesn’t add any delay.
I don’t know about Disneyland but Disney World stops people to search their bags and stuff as it is. I can’t imagine an ID check is the real bottleneck at the gates.
And if it was you would think just make ticketing an option… either digital to prevent ticket sharing or ID check at the service kiosks that are already outside the gates, every time. Doesn’t slow the actual gate line at all.
Is it? Is showing a fake ID to a private individual or company even a crime? I mean, I understand showing it to a police officer is obviously bad, but you can lie all you want about your name online, in person, ... whatever you want right.
I'm Donald Duck, btw.
> I'm Donald Duck, btw
You chose the one name that will get you in legal trouble - the IP lawyers will be all over you!
Considering facial recognition is rather bias with certain ethnicities it will just be inaccurate and fast, so still not solving the issue in full.
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.
Ah yes, that famous "immigrant community" that always commits fraud, plays the race card, all of them. One big defrauding, racist bloc.
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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.
i’m sure they’re gonna be selling the data of exactly which shops and rides you went to and for how long
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.
You can make this claim for any larger number by asserting a base rate of 1% without evidence.
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.
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)
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.
Which is pennies for a company the size of Disney.
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.
It would cost more than that to install an entire facial recognition network.
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