They aren't. At best they could cover the park with RFID readers and pick up when people passed by one, but they aren't going to be able to track people in the same way someone can track someone's cell phone. My understanding was that the transmission on the Magic Bands was centered on allowing the cameras on attractions to match photos with riders to link to photo packages not as some method of mapping crowds.
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Fastpass + : The Real Purpose?
- Thread starter Sundown
- Start date
NormC
Well-Known Member
Correct, depending on antenna and Disney chose touch point based RFID passive antennas with the BT radio being used for "long" range functions.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
I’m sorry...when did we enter a court room?
“Prove”??...this is a fan site and Disney is not required to tell us anything. Reasonable theories based on what small percentage of facts we glean from them
No longer is valid on a web board?
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
The effectiveness of tracking would be entirely dependent on the “net” the readers cast then, would it not?
Please tell me we’re not debating if Disney is interested in tracking us??
Of course they are...they data mine like it’s West Virginia.
The question is to what length were they comfortable to go?
Jon81uk
Well-Known Member
But it wasn't presented as a theory, it was presented as fact.
If the previous post had said, "I've heard a rumour that they use the long-range RFID to track crowd flow", then I would have taken the post in a different way. But they stated "They know where you are with in a park nearly all times" which several other people have stated that it is not believed Disney do.
So if someone has facts to prove they do know where you are all the time I would be interested in seeing information as its very interesting. But many other people have stated long-range RFID is only used for PhotoPass.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
My rule of thumb is it’s all theory here.
Until one of us is on the Disney board - we know nothing.
That doesn’t make all “theories” equal though. Some are reasonable and others are 100% clueless stupidity. That’s up for debate.
Voxel
President of Progress City
Disney is tracking people in the parks, its fairly safe to assume because they offer Free Wifi. Almost every place that has free wifi is tracking the location of phones and how they go through the store/location and what they are searching. Tracking through Magic Bands would be a waste of effort, due to a set percentage of the population who will not have a magic band. Statistically, I would assume it's more likely for a guest to have a cellphone over a magic band.
It should be noted that Wifi Tracking can be inaccurate, there are other means of tracking cellphone locations that use a mixture of wifi and other radio beams. However that transition was in discussion in 2018 as a market shift. But I don't know how many markets have shifted to it.
Jon81uk
Well-Known Member
Yep I expect they are using WiFi to track cellphone movements. Here in London TfL got some great data on the routes people use within underground train stations. https://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2017/09/l...rything-we-learned-from-tfls-official-report/
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
WiFi is also inconsistent though...not everybody has that on.
Voxel
President of Progress City
I cant find the article right now due to the meeting I am in but you can still track it with wifi off. I cant remember if you can ping of the antenna or cellular antenna. But there is means to do it, and many places do it.
Jon81uk
Well-Known Member
The signs up at London Underground stations state that if your WiFi is off they can't track you. But if it is on but not connected to the WiFi service, your MAC can still be tracked.
I would imagine it would work the same if Disney are using the technology, you won't need to be using Disney's Wifi to get tracked, but as long as it is on they can the MAC address to track where your phone has been (ie which WiFi base stations it has connected to).
BoarderPhreak
Well-Known Member
Unless your phone is off, in Airplane Mode or an anti-static bag - the cellular/WiFi radios are on - even if not connected. So yes, they can retrieve your MAC address and cellular ID. Services need to be scanned and broadcast regularly (that's how things work on networks).
Bender123
Well-Known Member
Much like any other data at a population level, they have no interest in what YOU are doing, they have an interest in what the herd does. We know they can tell its you on a ride, with enough certainty to match a picture up with you. The moment you plan a fastpass, there are only so many routes you can take from ride one to ride two. A few antennas along each route will easily tell you how the herd moves around the park. I don't even think this could possibly be in doubt. That data is likely used in aggregate for almost everything...Like has been said, they also use the MB for your room entry. I would say the only debate would not be if there is a net, but exactly how large the net is. We know its there, we know what it can do...
If you want to get into the really weird stuff, try going to WDW with Identical Twins...It really messes with their facial recognition on their security cameras and ticketing...They snap a picture of you every time you swipe into a park. There is a file on you, with pictures...It doesn't like people that look the same, so we get pulled about 50% of the time for "questions", because the system cant match my daughters properly.
My experience in tracking people comes from my time working in a company that built cell phone systems. So it probably isn't entirely applicable to RFID readers... but there were limits to tracking cell phone users and required you to pick a cell phone to pinpoint. You could do it, but if you wanted to track them you would have to continue tracking that number over and over, it was a bit like tracking a submarine with sonar each time you got a location for it you have no idea where it was headed and had to continually track it. There was also a limit to the number of phones you could track at a time... I can't imagine Disney with the tens of thousands of magicbands being carried around would be that feasibly tracked. Could you do it? Sure, but the number of points you would have to set out there would be extreme. And what would the point of the data be? If you know a person has gone from X attraction to Y attraction or Z store, do you really care which path they took to get there? I don't see that it would be of much value...
The fact that they still hand visitors the little plastic card randomly in a queue to hand off to the final cast member before you board the ride indicates that they don't have the system you are envisioning. If they had that system they wouldn't need to track a visitor in a line with the plastic card they could just use the reader at the beginning of the queue and the one at the end to track times. This would not be that difficult to do putting only one reader at the beginning and one at the end, and would give almost real time updates on the time in the lines. The fact that they haven't implemented this simply system leads me to believe that they haven't put much effort in using the magicbands to really track visitors' movements.
Bender123
Well-Known Member
I think you are confusing pinpoint accuracy with area tracking. We know they can pinpoint, based on the on ride integration. This lends that there is some ability to track how many bands are pinging the antenna when they are active and placing them in a general vicinity.
Look at it like this...they don't care where you, as a specific person, is. They care that there are 1500 of "people like you" trying to squeeze through an area at any given time. The red cards can just as easily be replaced with two tapstyles (one at the line and one at load). The problem with doing that is that you need to know exactly who it is that you tapped...thus, you would still use the red card.
RollerCoaster
Well-Known Member
That's not true. Disney can dedicate any percentage from 0 to 100% of an attraction's capacity to FP, however the amount will vary greatly based on the attraction, overall capacity, average up time, staffing, and maintenance.
Disney does not release all of the planned FP reservations immediately. They're released in blocks for a good reason. A certain percent are made available 60-days out, with the rest released between then and up to an hour before the time slot. Disney has to be able to account for how the attraction will operate. Not all ride vehicles may be availble. Also, the ride may not be fully staffed for all operating hours affecting capacity.
Let's take Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom for example. Early in the day they may not open both loading-unloading platforms and run fewer vehicles. The same may be true near the end of the day.
Also Disney will vary the amount of FP reservations made available by hour. Typically you may give a higher percentage of a ride's capacity to FP early in the day when the park is less crowded and less later in the day when it is more crowded. You also want to reduce the number of the reservations later in the day to account for the unexpected.
Why is that? Let's say you allowed FP reservations for 80% of an attraction's capacity for every hour of the operating day. What happens then when the attraction experiences downtime? What happens when some of the rides vehicles have to be unexpectedly pulled from operation for maintenance reasons? Also, how do you accomodate the downtime of other attractions in the park? Yes, the downtime of other attractions impacts FP at other rides. If you hold a reservation for an attraction that is down then you get a replacement FP that can be used at any time thereafter for an alternate attraction or for the same attraction you reserved for. Disney also has to account for customer service FPs?
Another reason why you don't dedicate 80% is because of the hour window. There is an unlikely, but possible scenario where enough FPs could show up all within a few minutes and cripple the attraction. It would stop the stand-by line and make the FP line equally long.
Under most scenarios it's fair to say that about 50% of a ride's capacity may be used for FP reservations, not 80%. However the actual number is less than 50% on many attractions. Let me also clarify...there is a difference between % of capacity made available for reservations versus % of capacity actually used for FP.
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As Adlai said once (his best performance): We are in the "Court of Public Opinion"
As a footnote: He should have added that - All of the judges were idiots.
bUU
Well-Known Member
Actually, I do get it. You just don't like "it" and are working very hard to rationalize your claims about it that go beyond the bounds.
Not when there is a simpler explanation.
Clearly there are some folks here who simply don't get the point about that - or more likely choose not to.
Sirwalterraleigh
Premium Member
Wasn’t that the chick that sang “Rolling in the Deep”??
...anyway, what’s ironic that the person asking for proof (as in a court room), would lose the case in the “court of common sense”
There is no “proof” that exists for us on a Disney fan site. Nobody knows the truth below the highest levels of the company...
...but their goals and motives are plain as day to anyone with the ability to analyze their objectives and combine that with a tad of common sense.
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