The Walt Disney Company’s theme parks see tens of millions of visitors each year, and keeping track of all of those people once they are inside the park is almost impossible. However, according to a patent application filed by the company, Disney may have found a novel—and slightly creepy—way to identify and monitor its visitors: taking pictures of their feet.

In its application, Disney outlines what it calls “a system and method for creating a customized guest experience at an amusement park.” A visitor would step up to a scanner that would then take an image of that person’s feet use that information to identify them at other locations in the park.

Image via Patent #US000009393697B120160719

Disney notes in its application that the data gained from tracking visitors can be extremely valuable to the company in a number of ways, including monitoring foot traffic to determine the most popular rides and attractions, along with the paths most visitors take to reach those locations. The company also said that being able to identify individual visitors would allow it to offer a customized park experience “such as creating a customized media output (e.g., photograph) directed to the particular guest.”

Regarding why the system is designed to look at shoes in particular, Disney explained that while other articles of clothing could be used for identification instead, they would not be as reliable since visitors might add or remove a layer of clothing depending on the weather. Meanwhile, guests are unlikely to change into a different pair of shoes during the day. Disney added that this method is less invasive than storing biometric data such as retinal scans or fingerprints.

As for how the system would actually work, the patent describes a combination between a robotic scanning unit, a cloud-based system for tying the shoe data to the visitor, and additional scanning locations that would match the visitor’s feet to the information stored in the database.

So far Disney’s idea is only a patent and may never see the light of day, but chances are that the company has a few dozen other ways to track guests in the works.

Photo by Chris Benseler