Disney has taken something mundane that most people find boring or irritating —physical security— and turned it on its head, making it easy, cool, and convenient. They are using it to enable better service and have even turned it into a new revenue stream.

Security in most organizations is a necessary cost center at best. We in the industry make the argument that security has enabled entire new industries and business lines —no one would buy things online without appropriate security— but for security to actively earn money for its host company is almost unprecedented.

Yet this is what Disney has done. The Disney MagicBand is a wrist band with a chip carrying a unique identifier and a radio which sends and receives RF signals both through contact sensors and through long range sensors in the parks and resorts (bands do not carry personal information).

Disney combines the band with a guest’s fingerprint (and PIN for some things) as positive identification of a guest’s identity and uses it to provide a wealth of services and capabilities that are enabling guests to experience Disney in a new way.

Disney explains some of the benefits on the MagicBand page:

• Unlock the door of your Disney Resort hotel room.
• Enter theme and water parks (with valid admission).
• Check in at FastPass+ entrances.
• Connect Disney PhotoPass images to your account.
• Charge food and merchandise purchases to your Disney Resort hotel room (only available during your hotel stay).
• the hotel is alerted when their airplane lands so that hotel staff can confirm that their room is ready and prepare the registration documents so when the guest arrives, they are assured that their room will ready with less time in the check-in line. This improves service not only for MagicBand guests but for other guests as well. The bands can be used to unlock your room, pay for meals and other things, freeing you from having to carry your wallet, reducing the opportunity for loss or theft.

These bands are, at their heart, security devices; they primarily solve the issue of access control and identity verification. The free versions (free only if you stay on site) come in only limited colors and styles, but (oh, Disney!) you can pay for a more customized and “cooler” band in a wider variety of colors, with your favorite character on it, etc. Thus a security device has become not only a business and service enabler, but a new revenue stream in its own right. Take a moment to soak that in.

Yes, there are a few privacy and security considerations here – some of them worth legitimate thought and informed choice – but security is always a balance of risks and, for me, the benefits to the guests and the business are astounding and the risks are low enough (or are the same as they have always been) that I am comfortable with the trade.

We in the security industry need to be designing transformational opportunities like this. This to me is a beautiful case study of Convenient Security.