Disneyland is rolling out facial recognition at park entrance. Here's how it works
Nothing shows as well as the face.
Retailers are using facial recognition technology to catch shoplifters more easily. Casinos used it to keep card counters away. Even a famous place in New York City is suspected of using football for people whose millionaire owner is looking for enemies.
Therefore, it is no surprise to many Disneyland visitors that it is now used at the entrance to the Funniest Place on Earth.
“Pretty much every other place is doing the same thing,” said John LeSchofs, 73, who visits the park about every six weeks with his wife. “The police, the government, they're all using facial recognition, I don't think it's going to stop.”
Guest facial images taken at the entrance of Disneyland and California Adventure are processed with biometric technology to convert the images into unique numerical values. The photos may be compared to the photos taken when the customer first used the ticket or annual pass.
Disney officials say the technology helps make park entry and re-entry easier and prevents fraud. But the rapid growth of facial recognition over the past decade has raised concerns among privacy experts who warn that such data could easily be passed on to law enforcement agencies or make companies targets for hacking.
“The familiarity of facial surveillance is really problematic,” said Ari Waldman, a law professor at UC Irvine. “We can't walk around with our faces hidden, so this is not just the next step in surveillance, it's different on a higher level. In the world of facial recognition, when people leave their homes, they're visible.”
Destinations over the past decade have begun to increasingly rely on facial recognition to speed up guest check-ins and purchases.
At the Intuit Dome visitors can use “GameFaceID” to get instant access to Clippers games or other live entertainment. To use it, a guest simply needs to upload a selfie and the technology generates facial recognition data to identify them in the field. The site's privacy policy states that it “may also determine that you are over 21 in your selfie.”
Dodger Stadium also uses facial recognition technology for visitors who want to use “Go Ahead Entry” at certain ballpark gates. The technology allows park riders to enter without producing a physical or digital ticket.
Some groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have expressed concern about the possibility of facial recognition and other biometric tracking technologies being used at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
But at Disneyland on Friday, tourists in matching T-shirts, toddlers in princess dresses and parents with mouse ears pushing strollers passed through security checkpoints paying little attention to signs posted nearby informing guests of the theme park's new facial recognition policy. “Use of this technology is voluntary,” read signs adorned with red, green, yellow and blue Mickey Mouse silhouettes.
Most theme park lines use facial recognition technology. Visitors who don't want to use their faces professionally can enter through a separate entrance marked with a silhouette of a head and shoulders with a slash between them. Of the many lines to get into Disneyland and California Adventure, there were only four on Friday that did not use facial recognition.
Visitors in those lines still have their photos taken, but the company said biometric technology is not used. Instead an employee was seen validating the tickets in person.
Facial recognition technology has long been criticized for making mistakes when identifying people, especially people of color. The study found that the systems are less likely to accurately distinguish the faces of dark-skinned women and that certain makeup patterns can render the technology useless. There is also the risk of data breaches, experts say.
“When you collect this kind of data you put a target on your back for people to steal,” said Adam Schwartz, director of privacy affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The nonprofit, which opposes government use of facial recognition data, has advocated for stronger laws to protect consumers when the technology is used by private businesses.
Park-goers who crowded the entrance on Main Street Friday morning as the melodious “Small World” played over the speakers outside the theme park seemed oblivious to the technology.
Many who spoke to The Times said that deciding between more than a dozen lines to get into the theme park came down to a simple calculation: which line had the fewest people.
Outside California Adventure, Robert Howell, 30, sat by the gate waiting for the park to open for his first visit. Howell, who was visiting Virginia, had never heard of Disney using technology to check park parking until he arrived at the park that day. The sight of you worried him, he said.
“It's a little scary because it's not clear how it's going to be used,” said Howell. “With TSA I know that's an option, but I didn't realize you could here so I just did it.”
Disney's data privacy policy notes that numerical values generated by technology are deleted within 30 days unless required to be retained for legal or fraud prevention purposes.
“We have implemented technical, administrative and security measures designed to protect visitor information from unauthorized access, disclosure, use and modification. From time to time, we review our security procedures to take into account new technologies and methods, as appropriate,” the notice reads. “Please know that, despite our best efforts, no security measures are flawless or impenetrable.”
Sandra Contreras isn't too worried about using technology for herself, but she does wonder what the future holds for her 5-year-old daughter and infant son. When the family recently visited the park she felt like she had no choice but to go out with her daughter's technology.
“When it came to me, I just did it,” he said. But when they were going to do this for him, I was very sad, to be honest, I felt like we had to do it, so he did it, but I think it affects the children a lot just to protect their privacy.”
