40 Major Music Festivals Have Pledged Not To Use Facial Recognition Technology (vice.com) 22
Forty of the world's largest music festivals -- including SXSW, Coachella, Pitchfork, and Bonnaroo -- have gone on the record to promise that they will not use facial recognition technology at their events, following a campaign launched by musicians and activists to ban the technology. From a report: Today, organizers of the campaign are declaring victory. "It's so important that people don't just learn about how scary and dangerous surveillance technology like facial recognition is but also learn about successful efforts to stop it," Evan Greer, the deputy director of Fight For the Future, a digital rights rights advocacy group that spearheaded the campaign, told Motherboard.
This victory for digital rights activists and musicians is the first major setback to commercial facial recognition companies in the United States, and could have ripples beyond the industry. In recent years, many music events have become increasingly Orwellian experiences. Biometric surveillance companies and venture capitalists have identified music festivals as a huge potential market for facial recognition technologies, which can be marketed as a way for concertgoers to bypass long lines. But musicians and activists have concerns.
This victory for digital rights activists and musicians is the first major setback to commercial facial recognition companies in the United States, and could have ripples beyond the industry. In recent years, many music events have become increasingly Orwellian experiences. Biometric surveillance companies and venture capitalists have identified music festivals as a huge potential market for facial recognition technologies, which can be marketed as a way for concertgoers to bypass long lines. But musicians and activists have concerns.
Anything legally binding? (Score:4, Interesting)
Read carefully (Score:1)
"WE" (the organizers) won't use facial recognition. That says nothing of all of the law enforcement they are going to be forced to hire to manage safety at the events. They can't speak for law enforcement or any other government agency. They also cannot dictate the terms of whatever security presence they will be forced to hire from the government as a condition of their permits.
Re: (Score:2)
Driver and passenger side face on the roads the gov kept "open" in and out.
The best traffic management for the day that moves everyone past police CCTV.
That free "city" bus/rail connection for the event? Lots of gov CCTV.
Flights to the city, ports, rail and bus services... all ready with CCTV.
Smartphone on? Gov collects on that.
Oh good.... (Score:2)
That was definitely up there as one of my worst fears. I am glad they addressed that.
I can't even begin to describe ... (Score:2)
... how much this comment makes you an asshole.
You apparently deliberately and violently missed the entire point, packed totalitarian surveillance, insulted those who don't want it, fearmongered wrt festivals, hinted at your anxiety disorder and tried to make the world a worse place. All in one comment.
If it wasn't so vile, I'd be downright amazed.
Backed, not packed. (Score:2)
It was supposed to happen. After all, it's the law, according to Murphy.
Because The Current Version Is So Harmful (Score:2)
This seems like just random fear of technology to me. I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why facial recognition technology is so harmful or bad. While the article talks about using it to gain fast access to the event I presume the concerns about that trace back to the fear it will be used for some kind of law enforcement purpose. I mean having to wait in the long line to get in with everyone else is hardly an Orwellian nightmare.
But I just don't see what's so scary or threatening about facial r
Re: (Score:2)
The fear verges on irrational in my opinion. The concern isn't really the facial recognition bit, it's the secret shared databases and the potential for pervasive surveillance. Use at a single event where the database is not shared and is deleted afterward doesn't seem like a problem to me.
The technology could be very useful at music festivals. Instead of having to show your bracelet to security to get into a restricted area, you could just walk right through. Known troublemakers can be stopped at the
Re: (Score:2)
I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why facial recognition technology is so harmful or bad.
It's the one kind of identification you're wearing on your forehead all the time. Everything else you can fairly trivially refuse to give out (tokens & passwords), takes close proximity (fingerprints,iris) or a lot of lab work (DNA). You might say that identifying yourself to enter an event is not a big deal, you were already planning to do that. But that database can be used to identify you everywhere else too, even in all the places you might not want to be seen and by people who wouldn't otherwise ha
Do you want a cookie? (Score:2)
This is like that Chris Rock joke about idiots going "I don't beat my children!". "Do you want a cookie? YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO, you dumb fuck!"
What's the point? (Score:3, Funny)
Last few festivals I've been to everyone's face was melting anyway.
People's faces weren't melting (Score:1)
That's just what the aliens who gave you the little pills want you to think.
Meanwhile (Score:3)
But musicians and activists have concerns. Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello, the Glitch Mob, and Speedy Ortiz were leading voices in the campaign, demanding concert promoters ban technologies that can be used to police concertgoers for drug use, target individuals for specific advertising content, or worse.
Attendees of these music festivals will take pictures and videos of themselves and their friends and upload them to Facebook and Instagram where they'll get tagged and tracked and will be targeted by advertisers.
Re: (Score:2)
Targeting people for "specific advertising content" is so mild a penalty...I guess the "or worse" is, well, pretty much ANYTHING else....
Of course, I don't think that seeing "specific advertising content" is a terribly bad thing, since I have learned the secret to a long and happy life - don't buy something just because you have seen an ad for it....
Faceball (Score:3)
At the risk of being cynical maybe they won't but a subcontractor could.
The NFL has been doing this for years now, they started with the Stupid Bowl and now are doing this for all of their games.
I'm sure if they are doing it MLB is as well as all fo the rest.
Accuracy? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but hasn't testing shown that most of these facial recognition systems have abysmal error rates?
You're wrong here. Testing has shown that people who don't understand what the technology does can abuse it to prove any failure rate and reason that they want. For example, give it a database of criminal mugshots, set the match criterion very loose, and then be aghast that comparing images of a legislative body results in a large number of hits. Or start with a database of ethnically homogeneous images, set the match criteria tight, and then be aghast that comparing a set of images of different ethnicity d
Taylor Swift (Score:1)
On the other hand, you have performers who are using facial recognition technology to identify stalkers and try and prevent them from being at their concerts [theguardian.com].
A year ago... (Score:1)