SeaWorld wanted my fingerprints

[RoyGBiv]

What the heck are they going to do with a fingerprint anyway?

Not long ago a person could ask...

1. What would anyone else do with my SSN?
2. What would anyone else do with my credit card number?
3. Why bother shredding documents before putting them in the trash?
4. What would a thief possibly do with my Electric/Gas/Water/Cable account number?
5........... ad infinitum

If one of my numbered accounts is compromised, I can (however painfully) change it.
How are you going to change your fingerprints once they're compromised?

It's only a matter of time.... When biometric data is widely used, criminals will find a use for stealing it.

Guaranteed.

[Dave2]

What the heck are they going to do with a fingerprint anyway?

Not long ago a person could ask...

1. What would anyone else do with my SSN?
2. What would anyone else do with my credit card number?
3. Why bother shredding documents before putting them in the trash?
4. What would a thief possibly do with my Electric/Gas/Water/Cable account number?
5........... ad infinitum

If one of my numbered accounts is compromised, I can (however painfully) change it.
How are you going to change your fingerprints once they're compromised?

It's only a matter of time.... When biometric data is widely used, criminals will find a use for stealing it.

Guaranteed.

Somewhere somehow some politician will come up with some scheme that needs fingerprints, and suddenly all that data will become quite interesting to the wrong people.

My roommate once told me that if he'd known that TX took your fingerprints for a DL before he got here, he probably would've passed on the promotion that transferred him to DFW. I'm not quite that paranoid about it, but only because the govt doesn't need your prints to screw you over. And I'm not really sure I'd call it paranoia anymore, either.

It sure seems like someone's trying to tell me "I know better than you" a lot more often these days. I don't know if I've just started paying more attention as I grow older, or if the Progressives / Commies / Socialists / Whatevers really are being more vocal. In either case, they seem to be gaining ground in at least the Federal Goverent, and that's got me worried.

[The Mad Moderate]

I see the current make-up of the neo-cons as a much bigger threat. They were for years pushing for a national ID that would use bio-metric data.

[Dave2]

I see the current make-up of the neo-cons as a much bigger threat. They were for years pushing for a national ID that would use bio-metric data.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that. Feel free to lump them in with the "Whatevers".

[fickman]

24 Hour Fitness is doing this also. . . I'm guessing that "borrowing" passes for unauthorized access is a problem for them, too. Their policy was to check photo ID for every member on each visit, but it seems like they can't get their staff to do that consistently, so they went for the same fingerprint solution.

I complied. I put my finger on the reader and they had the print before I even thought about resisting. About 30 minutes later, I started thinking, "What did I just do?" I'm not sweating it now, but I'm shocked at how quickly I gave it up.

Here's how it works:
- The fingerprint's actual image is not stored and cannot be recreated from the data they store
- The file with numerical landmark info is encrypted and stored by the vendor, so 24 Hour Fitness has no access to it
- They do a 1:1 match, not a many:1 match. (They don't scan your fingerprint to IDENTIFY you, they use it to AUTHENTICATE you. They pull your stored fingerprint based on the PIN you enter and see if the fingerprint you provide matches the stored fingerprint.) The processing power and time it would require to IDENTIFY you with your fingerprint is still a major undertaking

[Medic624]

Okay, so given all the responses and that I've had a few days to process the whole situation I have to say I wouldn't change how I responded because... it was an almost instant aversion when I saw the person in front of me asked to provide their fingerprint.

I was thinking, okay am I going to comply and freely give over my fingerprint without any knowledge of what they do with the info, how they store the info, who can access the info, how long they keep the info etc...

There were too many unanswered questions that I had without the gate worker (when asked) having any of the answers. So, given that I felt like a sheep being herded through the gates and asked to blindly comply and go along with the crowd I simply could not without more information. So I didn't ...

Given the varied responses I can see both sides of the issue but, I simply don't (didn't) feel comfortable giving out that information to an entity where I don't know where it is going, how it will possibly be used, who can access it...yada yada yada... Especially my fingerprints, SSN etc...And, I know every time I use the debit card, TX DL aspect but there are intrinsic safeguards and recourse (albeit difficult to fix) if it is compromised. I can always change my debit card number It would be a little more tedious to change my fingerprints.

[shipwreck]

I wouldn't give them the thumb print either...

[texasag93]

I totally forgot about WDW. I did it.