Privacy advocates rally at MSG to demand ban on facial recognition technology
Privacy advocates staged a rally outside Madison Square Garden to demand a ban on facial recognition technology at the venue. The protest reflects growing public pushback against the use of biometric surveillance in privately owned public spaces.
Why this matters: MSG has used facial recognition to bar lawyers it is in litigation with from entering the arena. That is not a security system — that is a blacklist with a camera. When a private company can scan every face at the door and decide who gets in based on its own legal interests, the technology has moved well past crowd safety. Anyone who buys a ticket, works nearby, or just walks through the turnstile becomes a data point in someone else's dispute. The question is whether venues should have this power at all, and right now most of them do.
Who should care: Privacy officers · Cybersecurity · General readers · Policy
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