JMR

A few years back I was flying from either EWR or JFK to either AMS or LHR and I had my finger scanned before flying and was given a little card. I had to return the card upon my return (I may have had it scanned at the return airport, which would mean it would have been AMS).

Anyway, something jogged my memory about this today and I got to wondering - what the heck was that all about? Is there a record somewhere of my index finger?

Any one who is willing to offer some insight?

AllanJ

Did everyone have fingers scanned or just you?

Probably just an experiment.

Disney uses finger scanning at its theme parks so guests cannot hand off a partially used multiple day admission ticket to someone else. These scans don't capture so much detail as fingerprints.

Travel tips:
http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/travel.htm

Bart

Deleted

Maxwell Smart

I believe Busch Gardens has a similar deal for season pass holders.

Can one refuse to have their finger(s) scanned? Or does that mean they don't get admission?

It would be (or is?) a sad day when people are required to be fingerprinted or finger-scanned just to get into an amusement park. (Yes I realize it's a revenue-protection issue, not a security issue, but still, the potential for problems when you start storing biometrics is huge!)

I'm more than a little disturbed at the idea of a private company storing my fingerprints or other biometrics for things totally unrelated to law enforcement. Among the myriad questions it raises are:

Just how much detail do they have?
Do they link a name with the print?
Who has access to them?
How secure do they keep them?
How long do they keep them?
If names and prints are linked, how sure are they that the names and prints match and the database doesn't get corrupted or tampered with?
At some point, isn't it a distinct possibility that law enforcement might 'request' that data in connection with some crime and an erroneous "partial" match may make someone's life seriously miserable?

A grocery store chain in my area recently began a similar project- you can register your thumbprint, then just get your thumb scanned and have your credit card or checking account debited directly, no need to carry any pesky cash or charge cards with you. I'll pass, thank you.

uva185

At Disney it is the top of your hand that is scanned, not your fingerprint. The device only looks at several points on your hand. It does not make a high quality copy of your hand. I belive the same goes for finderprint scanners. The scanner looks a a few key places on your finger. It does not actually record you full finger print.

Maxwell Smart

Interesting. Perhaps not quite as bad as I thought. I wonder how unique the images they look at are from person to person (unique enough, I guess!). On a related note, I suppose that if it only links the scan data to a specific ticket bar code, or something of the sort, then it would be fine, since no link to a name or ID would be there, just to the ticket.

lianluo

Whereas some folks here get upset about being searched or removing their shoes prior to the gate-this stuff about hand scanning and thumb prints drives me nuts! Being searched in hopes of preventing someone from killing a bunch of people is to me a minor inconvenience. But getting printed to go into a park or grocery store is enough to make me want to live in a cave.