DisneyLand, the mystical themed park flooded by millions of children annually, including many from Jamaica, has become the latest in a growing list of private entities facing multi-million dollar lawsuits for utilising facial recognition technology without adequate disclosure or consent.
The Walt Disney Company reportedly introduced facial recognition systems at both the entrances to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure in April without properly informing guests or obtaining explicit consent. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of park visitors, seeks at least US$5 million in damages and raises broader questions about how biometric data is being collected at high-traffic sporting and entertainment venues.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Disney has been accused of violating privacy, competition and consumer protection laws by implementing the technology at Disneyland, where photographs of guests’ faces are taken and compared with images when they first use their ticket or annual pass.
“Guests should be able to expressly opt in to this type of sensitive facial recognition technology with written consent – the onus of privacy rights should not be on the victim,” stated Blake Yagman, a lawyer for the proposed class of visitors, in the complaint.
He added that, “Given how sensitive facial recognition data is, explicit written consent should be required to protect the privacy of guests at Disney Theme Parks.”
Mass adoption of facial recognition technology has sparked concern over the surveillance of citizens by private entities and the commercialisation of sensitive biometric information.
Retailers, supermarkets, sports stadiums, theme parks and entertainment venues are increasingly utilising facial recognition software to manage crowd flow, streamline entry and, purportedly, for security purposes.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), several grocery store chains are using face recognition on their customers. It said the incorporation of “BOLO” (“Be On the Look Out for”) alerts by companies on behalf of law enforcement has the potential to become — and may already be becoming — a powerful nationwide government surveillance dragnet.
“Face recognition is an enormously powerful surveillance and tracking technology that continues to lack broad public acceptance and legitimacy (especially when used ‘on’ people rather than ‘by’ people, for example, to unlock their phone). It is unreliable, disproportionately imprecise in evaluating the faces of black people and other groups, and has been the subject of misuse by companies and law enforcement alike, with at least 10 publicly reported cases of people, nearly all black, suffering false arrests based on face recognition errors,” the American non-profit civil rights organisation stated.
Disney said it disposes of the data gained from its facial recognition technology within 30 days unless it’s necessary for legal or fraud prevention purposes, according to its privacy policy. However, the lawsuit contends the assertion “simply cannot be true given the biometric information is compared to when guests first bought tickets or annual passes and associated their pictures with those tickets or passes”.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the filing of the lawsuit comes after Disney last year paid $10 million to settle a complaint brought by the Federal Trade Commission over the collection of children’s data on YouTube videos.