Disneyland Visitor Files $5 Million Lawsuit Over Facial Recognition Technology

When you visit Disneyland Resort, you may encounter its facial recognition technology at the theme park entrances.

Disneyland and California Adventure implemented the system recently, including the new technology at some of the park entrances. Now, after visiting the park with her children, a guest of Disneyland Resort has filed a lawsuit regarding the facial recognition technology.

According to the Orange County Register, Summer Christine Duffield of Riverside County has filed a lawsuit, alleging that Disneyland Resort violates privacy with this new system. “Disney does not adequately disclose the use of their biometric collection, so consumers — which almost always include children — have no idea that Disney is collecting this highly sensitive data,” according to the complaint. “Guests should be able to expressly opt in to this type of sensitive facial recognition technology with written consent — the onus of privacy rights should not be on the victim.”

According to the lawsuit, Duffield visited the resort on May 10th with her children. A Disney spokesperson has already replied to the lawsuit, saying,“We respect and protect our guests’ personal information and dispute the plaintiff’s claims, which we believe are without merit.”

The facial recognition technology was added back in April 2026. Both parks offer alternate lanes that do not use the face scanning, and allow guests to skip the process. When the new technology rolled out, there were signs posted near security to notify visitors of the use of facial recognition.

The $5 million class action lawsuit was filed on May 15th in U.S. District Court in New York. Orange County Register notes, “Disneyland takes photos of daily visitors and annual passholders at park entrances and uses biometric technology to convert the images into unique numerical values. The biometric data compares the numerical values to find a facial match with the photo saved when a ticket or annual pass was first used. Disney deletes all biometric numerical values within 30 days, except in cases where the data must be maintained for legal or fraud-prevention purposes.”