During a question and answer session at the Walt Disney Company’s shareholder meeting in Salt Lake City last Wednesday, Disney president and CEO Bob Iger responded to a potential problem that was brought up by a representative of the Disneyland Resort’s hotel union.
The problem? Disney employee identification cards are embedded with the employee’s social security number, which some employees are saying puts them at risk for identity theft.
Iger isn’t ignoring these complaints, though; in fact, he made it a point to let everyone know that the company already has plans underway to fix the problem.
“We are addressing this issue,” Iger said last week. “This issue will be completely fixed. We’re trying to do it as quickly as possible.”
Last month members of the union Unite Here, which represents over 2,100 hotel workers, filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the ID cards are illegal. Additionally, union members submitted a petition last Tuesday with over 1,400 signatures, asking that the company resolve this issue immediately.
Technology such as smartphones and other devices can read the bar codes embedded in employee IDs, but when the IDs were initially developed, this kind of technology was much less available than it is today. Due to the fact that thousands of Disney employees across the country use these ID cards, Iger made it clear that “this is not a small thing; this is a big thing. We obviously will not be able to use the same system, but we’re working on the solution.”
