Fingerprint scanners have been a mainstay at Walt Disney World for years. That was, of course, until touchable surfaces became a danger during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Walt Disney World reopened last year after the pandemic shutdown, biometric scanning was suspended in favor of the touchless MagicBand-only system.
But with COVID-19 protocols relaxing, like the scaling back of the face mask policy just yesterday, it seems that Disney is ready to reinstate the finger print scans.
The system is reportedly testing at Blizzard Beach water park today, and it is expected to roll out resort-wide in the coming days.
Despite the relaxing of health and safety protocols, the Delta variant of COVID-19 is still driving infections. Central Florida is now the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, recording among the highest case rates in the world and experiencing record hospitalization rates surpassing those seen by New York City in the early stages of the pandemic in March 2020.
For the latest Disney Parks news and info, follow WDW News Today on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
This one doesn’t bother me as much as the return of buffets. We understand that COVID doesn’t spread from surface contact as much as we first earlier thought. And maybe it makes no sense since there’s no difference, but I would rather have a fingerprint biometric system than facial recognition. I know, there’s not really a distinction between the two. I will admit my willingness to accept one and not the other is a bit irrational.
i can use a smart phone to pay for a transaction. with their new cards taking the place of pay for magic bands, disney is not capable of using the same technology to enter their once magical theme parks?
What does Disney do with the fingerprints after the visitor leaves Disney Properties? Is there a name associated each fingerprint?
The fingerprint is one of many SQL BLOB fields that are retained in the database, along with your Name, Lead Source, Amount Spent, Wristband ID, Card_ID, Dates_Valid_for_entry, Mailing Address, email_addr, Cell_Phone, disney_experience_logon_name, etc. All of the data points stored in a database on a visitor can be stored infinitely. As long as they want…
They proved that the chances of passing covid through touching is very small to almost impossible. So this does not bother me.