Big Brother Disney

In 2013 Disney Land started giving a device to visitors called the MagicBand. The MagicBand is basically “a radio-powered bracelet that will open your hotel room door at the Disney resorts, let you into the parks, let you get onto rides more quickly, and even pay for your breakfast at Gaston’s Tavern.” Visitors are each handed one upon entry—what they aren't given is information about what it's doing and how it works. 

The "magic" at play, of course, turns out to be extensive GPS tracking, with the MagicBand in constant wireless communication with the Disney tech HQ. In this essay, Adam Clark Estes summarizes the feeling when he realized just how much Disney was watching:

“It’s kind of like signing up for Facebook with the hope that you can connect with far off friends, only to realize several years later that the social network has been gobbling up your online activity in order to sell ads. You agreed to this deal. Nevertheless, you probably didn’t comprehend every detail buried in the fine print."

Because he’s a technologist (self-described “nerd”), Estes was just as interested in how the park used the device to track and correlate information, as its mechanics for consumer transparency—so he cut open the wristband himself. Then he went to talk to a hacker. In this way, he got an idea of what the tech was capable of (such as communicating with receivers up to 100 feet away), though he still doesn't know the extent of what Disney is doing with the huge amount of data it's collecting. Without hitting you over the head, though, Estes ends up demonstrating how just opening up a closed device and trying to figure out how it works can be a form of consumer empowerment. That’s likely the best we can hope for, unless someone sues Disney sometime soon.