Arthur's Blog: Walt Disney World is About to Attach RFID Transmitters to Its Visitors' Wrists

The most disconcerting travel story in recent years appeared in The New York Times on Monday. It told of a decision by executives of Walt Disney World, in Orlando, to eventually replace cardboard admission tickets to Disney theme parks with rubber bracelets capable of containing and transmitting personal information about the bearer.

The bracelets will contain the most sophisticated computer components: radio frequency identification (RFID) chips able to retain information, metallic transmitters able to convey it to electronic posts scattered about Walt Disney World and in the clothing of Disney characters. Purchasers will be asked to reveal their personal data on buying these wrist-band tickets: name, gender, date of birth, marital status, hometown, personal likes and dislikes. Then, instead of passing through a turnstile on entering a particular theme park, they will simply swipe the bracelet in front of an electronic device, which will let them.

Oh, and the bracelets will also act as credit cards recording expenditures, so that Disney will collect not simply information about spending habits, but every penny of the expenditures made by visitors, without commission to a credit card company. When those visitors do spend the money, that information will stored within the bracelet and transmitted to a giant, super-computer.

And how will this information be used? There are first the funny examples. On bending down to greet Donald Duck, Donald will respond to you by exclaiming, based on precise knowledge: "Hi, Jack. I hear today is your birthday." Or: "Hello, Mary, you've come a long way from Scranton, Pennsylvania."

It will all be comical to a fault -- until... The games will end when the bracelet will advise you of the need to take a mid-afternoon snack after you have earlier had lunch at a Disney restaurant. It may list all sorts of enticing foods, all kinds of toys and games suitable to your personality. It will save you a place at exhibitions you wish to visit, and then advise you to rush over immediately and you will be spared a wait in line. It will do all these things, nominally for the purpose of enhancing your enjoyment, but mainly to make you spend more money than you otherwise might have.

Is it only me? Am I among the few who detests this invasion of our privacy, this deliberate manipulation of our decisions, this constant advertising -- from voices coming from your wrist -- of what you should or should not do? Or is it that we Americans no longer wish to be left alone in such matters?

The Disney organization is apparently convinced it will make additional millions from the use of these rubber bracelets. I hope the idea enjoys a quick death.