We gave up on it because a) why would Disney buy the tech from us when they can build it themselves fairly easily; and more importantly b) yecch, I don’t want to surveillance technology even if it’s cute.

Spinball Whizzer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjcjrWE2Bas

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/09/band-shoots-video-by.html

They can surveil themselves, and immediately turn themselves in for any crimes they commit.

Not true. Everyone’s got a handheld camera – they’re built into mobile phones these days.
You don’t control what a handheld camera shoots if it’s in someone else’s hand.

Wall-mounted cameras are in the control of someone other than you, most likely.

As are handheld cameras – unless I’m the only person on the scene. Which is unlikely to be the case in an amusement park.

How many cameras are there watching you? Where are those cameras? What choices are the people in control of those cameras making?

You can’t tell, but that’s the same for CCTV cameras and handheld cameras.

Where does that footage go?

The footage goes into a database – flickr.com, most likely. Or onto a harddisk.

Who else sees or has copies of that footage?

In the case of flickr? Everyone.

If you’re not in control of the camera and its footage, you may never know the answers to any of these questions until that footage is used against you.

You’re not in control of any other camera but your own. You cannot control the cameras of other people – what do you do if someone snaps a picture of you in the park, using their mobile phone? Do you talk to them and demand that they erase the picture?

I’m not making this point to be obnoxious, I’ve got a genuine concern here.
Let me start at the beginning:
We have a society. Society has laws so that everyone can get along and get on with their lives. Our society is (depending on where you read this) a democracy. That means citizens are responsible for creating these laws.
The process of creating laws often take the shape of public debate. Public debate lets us influence the opinions of other voters, for example through rational debate.

The public debate about CCTV cameras seem to be concerned with how to get rid of them. The public debate about handheld cameras seem to be concerned with how we should be able to photograph anything we want.

How would one go about to achieve both these goals, since they seem to be conflicting?

Let’s say we create a law that forbids CCTV cameras. Fine, but what is a CCTV camera? As the name implies it’s a Closed Circuit Tele Vision. So all the Evil Amusement Park Inc. now has to do to keep all their CCTV cameras is to allow web access to them from their homepage – this turns them into Open Circuit Tele Vision, also known as WebCams.

What do we do then? Ban webcams from public places? Clearly not a popular option.
Well, let’s ban the Evil Amusement Park Inc. from storing the images in their database.
Simple, we just create a law that says no images from CCTV cameras or WebCams may be stored in a database, public or otherwise.

Oooops, suddenly we’re not allowed to upload webcam images to webservers (which are a form of database) – we’ve outlawed webcam feeds. And YouTube. And Flickr.

What I’m trying to say is that laws have unintended consequences. We should carefully consider those consequences before we go ahead and demand that the law be changed.

It’d relieve me of the tedium of pulling out my own camera all the time, and I won’t look like a complete berk while running around, trying to find a good angle.

Frankly, the only thing cooler would be if I could hire a robot to carry my camera for me, and take photos at moments when I was looking good.

Having said that, if I was one of the park owners I’d be incredibly tempted to install RFID sensors all around the park to get some data on how people tend to make their way around. It’d be invaluable information to help optimise the park layout. I guess it would depend on the kind of range you read the RFIDs from though.

1) which ride is most popular, at what time of day and week

2) what is the wait time on each ride throughout the day

3) screens at each ride that shows the current wait time for that ride, and nearby rides

4) rearrange the location of the rides, so that the most popular ones are distributed evenly throughout the park, surrounded by less popular ones. This makes them more tempting, if only because the queue is shorter

5) This doesn’t really have anything to do with RFIDs, but it’s just an idea.

At banks, post offices, and nearly everywhere else, you can get queue numbers. They call your number when your turn comes, removing to need to stand in line. If any park does this, it will immediately become the most popular. How many of us will not go today because of the endless queues?

Instead of standing in line for hours waiting for our turn, we’ll be chilling in one of the many coffee shops in the park itself, buying expensive drinks.

The whole tracking thing creeps me out; but if they’re going to do it anyway why not reduce the number of obnoxious dads sticking cameras in my face at the same time?

@#5

2) what is the wait time on each ride throughout the day?
Most parks have this as well as the further capability of employees being able to radio to another ride and get instant updates for guests. During HHN Universal even has a text messaging service for wait times as well as a “choose your own adventure” option.

3) screens at each ride that shows the current wait time for that ride, and nearby rides
Also pretty standard, though the nearby ride one is pretty redundant.

4) rearrange the location of the rides, so that the most popular ones are distributed evenly throughout the park, surrounded by less popular ones. This makes them more tempting, if only because the queue is shorter
I am assuming you mean this for carnival rides? Otherwise the logistics of such a thing are damn near impossible especially since certain rides are more popular at certain times of the day/year and besides that are housed in their own specially-designed buildings.

5) This doesn’t really have anything to do with RFIDs, but it’s just an idea.

At banks, post offices, and nearly everywhere else, you can get queue numbers. They call your number when your turn comes, removing to need to stand in line. If any park does this, it will immediately become the most popular. How many of us will not go today because of the endless queues?
Disney does something similar called “Fast Pass” which allows you to come back at a certain time and go through a shorter line. Universal charges for it; but allows you instant access on all of the rides. Both are pretty popular, both have their problems.

That’s all they show you. I’d be pretty confident that they film every square inch 24/7. Remember this is Dominionist Disney, the people who want to make being gay a capital offense.

“Ah, yes, there’s the time Billy got mad at his sister and knocked her ice cream cone on the ground. Oh and Look, there’s daddy giving billy a talking to. Quick fast forward to Sally puking in the bushes after the Spinball Whizzer ride.”
Good times.

What if we create a law that states that hand-held cameras are allowed in public spaces?

Ooops, suddenly tripods are illegal. If you want to buy a tripod, you have to sign a declaration stating that you are only going to use it indoors or in private.

What about banning for-profit use of cameras in public places?

Ooops, suddenly professional photographers and photo-journalists are out of a job.
And surveillance is still possible, as all security guards will now be “volunteers” using helmet mounted panoramic cameras. Volunteers from a non-profit, of course – some sort of church, perhaps?

Actually, this is Alton Towers, owned by Nick Leslau and his investment firm Prestbury, and leased to Merlin Entertainments, who also manage the Madame Tussaud’s around the world, the Legoland Parks, the London Eye…

Maybe we could organize some sort of unofficial tag-swap, so that folks could get each other’s videos and see what kind of a day some random stranger had at the park.

Ok, besides the “omfgmyprivacy!” and “whatsthebigdeal?”, my first reaction was, “cool, what sort of creative ways can we interact with this system?” Seems to me there are some great opportunities

How about:

Pick up a wristband, attach it to a blow-up (sex) doll, get the doll in lots of pics, buy DVD. Double score for a sex doll.

Post on craigslist or other equivalent, saying you wish to swap wristbands at the beginning of the day anonymously. You pick up the DVD of someone you have only interacted with for 1 minute. Voyeurism at the amusement park! Bonus points for attaching it to someone unbeknownst to them. Double bonus points for attaching it to a staffer, triple for attaching it to a character.

Pick up a wristband, put it in a locker/the trash, buy the DVD and see what they do when they have no record of you visiting anything in the park.

I’m sure they are going to try to be very vigilant that folks attach the strap to their person in a semi-permanent way, but I don’t think it’ll take more than 1 day for someone to circumvent it somehow. (I s’pose they can use the same cameras to track that the person they’re seeing matches the person who picked up the wrist strap…and they can require you return the strap upon exit.)

This is no different than selling photos of riders as they drop (and hopefully lift their shirts) on Splash Mountain in Disney World, or countless other places. Something which has been done for 30 years with still photographs. Calm down.

@22: I wouldn’t be so quick to compare a Splash Mountain camera which apparently people know enough about to manipulate to their advantage (the shirt lifting you refer to) and surveillance cameras people know so much less about.