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Comment by cyberpunk | Hacker News Reader

I can't even really put into words how crazy that is. How long this been going on and why are people putting up with this? Why isn't this a huge controversy? Am I in the minoriy by being completely shocked by this?

I wouldn't let my government do this to me without a court order I could challenge, and there's a children's theme park doing this thousands of times daily with no opposition?

This wouldn't be possible in europe.

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I was just thinking that Sea World San Diego took finger prints Las summer when we went. I googled it and on the first result there is a comment from 2007 from someone mentioning the same.

http://www.fodors.com/community/united-states/borrowing-tick...

I'm not full on tinfoil hat, but.. but.. I mean.. Uhh.

WHAT?

Maybe I'm more paranoid than most, but I've definately been getting more defensive about my privacy in the last two years or so. I don't do social media, I at least tell my phone not to do location stuff (I have no idea if it obeys this) and noscript etc etc. Even before that, though, giving fingerprints away without being forced to do so is completely mind bending to me. I would never do that.

Maybe I would have once before I got more jaded about this kind of business, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't. I find it especially toxic that they'll refuse entry if you don't do it.. It's making you chose between your crying children and a ruined holiday vs giving away one of the only things that can physically identify you to a random corp.

I used to not care so much about these things, but then I started working for a big marketing/tracking/data broker company. Going from 'Yeah, I know this stuff is going on since I read the tech news' to actually building that stuff and seeing the kind of data avail would make anyone take similar steps..

This is common at places with ticketed entry in the US. Even my old gym used a very similar fingerprint scanner.

Pretty sure the tech is all from the same one or two vendors. They claim that neither the raw fingerprint nor a unique identifier derived from it is stored. Instead, one of seven possible values is computed from it and only that classification is saved. If true, in practice, there is a 1-in-7 chance that your scan will match someone else's.

Resistance is futile.

I wouldn't want my government doing this to me either cause I have to live somewhere and hey, we're all in this together. I don't need to experience Disneyland though, so I'm all right with this policy. I hear they also kick you out if you're too intoxicated, they probably have a lot of policies that would be ludicrous if implemented by real countries.

Well, there are legit reasons for your govt making you do so.. Say you're a suspect in some murder and they have some prints on the weapon; they want to compare with your hands right... That's a reasonable thing for a govt to compel you to provide and we're all pretty much agreed that this is ok.

Private companies taking that data at childrens amusement parks not so much. I'm not sure we can compare that with drunk policies...

If you're worried about people recording your fingerprints, presumably you are careful never to, like... touch anything?

Fingerprints can be taken from loads of things I touch. They're useless if they don't have my fingers to compare them to, and they can only have my fingers with a court order.

Or, I guess, if I want to see daffy duck with the kids... >_<

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