A counterfeit merch crackdown, facial recognition at K-pop concerts, and 3 other things we learned from HYBE’s 2025 sustainability report
HYBE, the South Korean entertainment company behind major K-pop acts, disclosed in its 2025 sustainability report that it is using facial recognition technology at concerts and pursuing counterfeit merchandise enforcement, among other operational and governance initiatives.
Why this matters: Facial recognition at concerts is not a neutral security upgrade. Fans buying tickets did not necessarily agree to have their faces scanned and matched against a database. HYBE is a private company, and its concerts are a controlled environment — which means it sets the rules, often with little public scrutiny. The sustainability report framing makes this sound responsible and measured. But burying biometric data collection inside a CSR document is exactly how practices like this get normalized before anyone has a real conversation about consent.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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