Biometric authentication uses a trait about the person to positively identify them before granting access. Whereas a password is something you have to know, a biometric is something you are.
Biometrics can be divided into physiological characteristics or behavioral characteristics. Some examples of biometrics include: fingerprints, palm veins, face recognition, DNA, palm print, hand geometry, iris recognition, retina scanning, odor/scent, typing rhythm, gait, and voice recognition.
Disney Pixar’s The Incredibles even featured a scene with several biometrics being used to authenticate Edna. Along with a PIN code (something you know), she provided a hand scan, retina scan, and voice recognition for multi-factor authentication.
As for other Disney characters, it seemed interesting to think about biometrics that may or may not work for them based on their characteristics or adventures.
Access Granted
Mike Wazowski of Monsters, Inc.
Biometric: Retina scanner
Mike is pretty much the poster boy of using a retina scanner for authentication. He might even consider looking into sponsorship opportunities.
Cinderella
Biometric: shoe recognition
Cinderella is sought out after fleeing the ball at midnight. The prince’s servant covers the kingdom to identify her based on the glass slipper. Apparently, shoe recognition is unique with magical glass slippers as the servant was able to uniquely identify Cinderella.
Sleeping Beauty
Biometric: Kiss/lip recognition
“Only a kiss from her one true love will awaken her and break the curse.” When the prince kisses Sleeping Beauty, he is authenticated by his kiss/lip biometrics, behavioral and physiological characteristics respectively, and awakens her. This would be a pretty awkward biometric system to “sign in” to the office each morning or to log into your computer or smartphone. Was it just a quick peck? Did you slip in some tongue? Did the machine get cleaned from the person before you? Yeah, awkward…
Scar from Lion King
Biometric: Facial recognition
Nothing like being even more self-conscious of your one known attribute with facial recognition and being named Scar. No wonder you turn out evil.
Access Denied
Mickey Mouse
Biometric: fingerprints
Mickey might find fingerprint authentication a bit annoying when always wearing his iconic gloves.
Ariel from The Little Mermaid
Biometric: voice recognition
Ariel may have realized she was giving up her singing when she made her deal with Ursula but she may not have realized that she would also no longer be able to authenticate to her computer-whatchamacallit with voice recognition.
Evil Queen from Snow White
Biometric: facial recognition
The queen’s jealousy with Snow White may have actually been trying to do facial recognition. The password hint was “fairest of them all” and it was showing Snow White to match her face against unsuccessfully. When the hack failed, she doxxed Snow White and swatted her with a poisoned apple.
Anakin and Luke Skywalker from Star Wars
Biometric: fingerprints
Star Wars characters are now Disney characters! Fingerprint biometrics are a bit limited in reliability when people keep getting their hands cut off… Fortunately, R2-D2 can probably hack the system to get you in.
Beast from Beauty and the Beast
Biometrics: Fingerprints, gait, facial recognition, voice recognition, and most others
The transformation for Beast would require resetting Beast’s authentication on everything! Fingerprints, stride, voice, and everything else would have to be reset. Fortunately, his staff would be in more useful forms to assist him at the same time.
Aladdin
Biometrics: fingerprint, facial recognition, voice recognition, gait
“Prince Ali” may not be recognized for username and password but the biometrics would be setting off alerts with false positives that “Prince Ali” is the same as that street rat Aladdin.
Can you think of any other Disney characters that are walking examples of biometrics? Share them on Twitter with #DisneyBiometrics.
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