Big Brother at Alton Towers

So, it seems that I'm only 2 years late to the news that the British theme park Alton Towers has introduced RFID technology in wrist bands to physically track and video their customers using CCTV as they move around the park.

The technology is primarily intended to offer a service which creates a custom video of "Your Day at Alton Towers". Guests wear bracelets fitted with RFID tags that trigger surveillance cameras throughout the park. The video footage is then spliced together automatically with stock "B roll" footage from the park to produce a custom DVD for each customer with a run time of up to 30 minutes.

The surveillance cameras are also used for "safety and crime prevention".

Guests opt-in to wear the tags but the privacy implications for other guests who will feature as "extras" in other people's DVDs are worth reflecting upon. The Alton Towers privacy policy states the following:

Please note that personal data in the form of images of visitors to the Park is collected via the operation of closed circuit television ('CCTV'), ride photography and video cameras all of which are located throughout the Park. Your image will be recorded and processed for the purpose of producing photographic images and video recordings.

Data from video cameras is collected by the wearing by visitors to the Park of a radio frequency identification (RFID) wristband. Please note your image may be captured passively through other visitors to the Park who may be wearing an RFID wristband.

I'm torn. Is this an relevant, exciting and clever use of a new technology which offers a genuine benefit to guests or a gross invasion of privacy?

P.S. Did you realise that it now costs nearly £100 a head to get in to Alton Towers?

Via RD's Delicious links.

Comments

[Claire Scaramanga]

As a member of the YourDay team, I would like to address your concerns regarding privacy.

The RFID wristbands are not used for any other purpose other than to create the YourDay movie. They are also passive. This means that they have no power source and do not trigger anything. They also store no data.

How the system works is that, as the visitor to Alton Towers gets on one of the featured rides, the wristband is read by an antenna and this enables us to catalogue the individual video clips and insert-edit them into a movie at the end of the day.

The cameras are only located on the featured rides and at five "pinch points" in the park. They do not cover the entire 500 acre park and are not surveillance cameras. We do not have a control room with anyone watching visitors on the rides.

The wristbands each have a unique randomly allocated number and are distributed randomly on park. As I mentioned, they hold no data, so we will NEVER know the details of the person wearing a particluar wristband.

I hope this addresses and reassures you on the privacy front.

Claire

[Lee]

Thanks for the clarification Claire. I can se you have thought this through.

However, it's not what you *actually* do but rather what you have reserved the right to do that niggles me.

The era of privacy is clearly over. I suppose I just need to get over it.

[Anon]

Actually I think you will find it costs £35 per head to get in - the guy in that article bought a family tickey, which paid for 5 people (so at £98, that works out at just under £20 each)