Ooh I actually know this one. Being employed at Universal’s Islands of Adventure (hope I saw you there!!) they extensively went over this at training/orientation. It is not your fingerprint that they are taking, but a biometric scan of your finger. This is, as stated, in order to make sure it is you using the ticket that you have purchased instead of someone who found your ticket or stole your ticket.
Now I don’t know the difference between a biometric scan and a fingerprint, but they made it very clear that they are not the same thing. Basically they just took a picture of your finger. But you know multibillion-dollar corporations, nothing is ever as basic as it seems.
Also if you were able to use multiple tickets and multiple people the finger scan may just recognize that you simply have had a ticket. Perhaps if you lost your ticket completely but used it at one point, they would allow you to enter without a ticket by scanning your finger. These theme parks are surprisingly consumer friendly.
The difference is that they retain an algorithmic representation of the fingerprint, not the fingerprint itself. They can’t recreate the fingerprint from their data, they can only compare it to a new fingerprint, run it through their algorithm, and see if they match. That way, they don’t retain any personally identifiable information. This is very important with today’s privacy laws.
From what I understood in the description of the scan, they’re not making/retaining an algorithmic representation of the fingerprint so much as a representation of the fingers.
That they’re not relying on prints is also supported by:
Tastes: LOL about the blood samples. Like the gizmos in Gattaca. Creepy because it’s only a slight exaggeration.
Anyone: How does readmission to Universal or Disney work? Is a one day one park ticket voided as soon as I enter for the first time or can I get back into the same park the same day with my ticket. I can see why they would want to bind a particular ticket to a particular person then, so I can’t sell it for 10 bucks on my way out for the day, or in case it gets lost or stolen on a trip out to my car.
At my local theme park Valleyfair (and at all of the Six Flags / Cedar Fair parks I’ve been too) the admission media is voided as soon as you enter the gate and you’re supposed to get a hand stamp for readmission. I hate this (OCD thing probably, eww ink on my hand) so I tried once to use my season pass for a second time to get back into Valleyfair and it came back invalid so the ticket taker got a manager to approve letting me back in. I can’t figure out why they wouldn’t allow this normally since a season pass is bound to my picture. I can’t just leave for the day and loan it to a friend.
AlmostPerfect, not like you’d remember a particular guest months later but I was there with my sister on 24 October. I rode the Hulk and the drop tower a few times and we spent most of the rest of the time with what seemed like most of the people at Harry Potter. What’s funny is I have deep red hair that looks natural and people kept yelling out “I’ts a Weasley” Not having read the books or seen the movie I didn’t get it until my sister told me.
Disney has a very complicated ticketing system, with various types of tickets, add-ons, etc. They use a hard plastic card with a magnetic strip as the ticket, and what type of ticket you’ve got, as well as any extras, are encoded onto this. For guests staying on Disney property at WDW, the ticket may also be their room key, their dining plan, and a card they can use to purchase items in the parks and have charged to their hotel bill. It may or may not include ‘park-hopping’ (the ability to visit more than one of the parks in the same day), or it may include admission to the water parks and ESPN Wide World of Sports and Disneyquest. Each ticket is coded individually at purchase. Even the most basic ticket they sell - for example, one-day admission to The Magic Kingdom only, nothing else- includes pretty much unlimited re-entry for the day, using the ticket. So, yeah, pretty much what you guessed, it’s to prevent people reselling their tickets. They actually call them ‘Key to the World’ cards in Disney lingo. The extent to which the Disney tickets can be individualized is actually pretty incredible. It also has your name printed on it at purchase.
One oddity in the Disney ticketing system; the WDW yearly pass is actually a flimsy paper-type deal (still with magnetic strip). This is a matter of much unhappiness among annual pass holders, who would like a hard, durable plastic ticket like everyone else gets. Go figure…
Most WDW tickets are in fact paper, just like the passes. The plastic ones are ordinarily issued in conjunction with a hotel room booking that includes a ticket purchase. The plastic card acts as the park admission ticket, hotel room key, and charge card for items purchased on-property and charged to your room.
The only concession passholders get over regular ticket holders is a small flimsy paper sleeve to keep our passes in.
