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Privacy United States

NFL to Roll Out Facial Authentication Software to All Stadiums, League-Wide (therecord.media) 72

Posted by EditorDavid from the extra-player-on-the-field dept.
America's National Football League "is the latest organization to turn to facial authentication to bolster event security," reports the Record, citing a new announcement this week: All 32 NFL stadiums will start using the technology this season, after the league signed a contract with a company that uses facial scans to verify the identity of people entering event venues and other secure spaces.

The facial authentication platform, which counts the Cleveland Browns' owners as investors, will be used to "streamline and secure" entry for thousands of credentialed media, officials, staff and guests so they can easily access restricted areas such as press boxes and locker rooms, Jeff Boehm, the chief operating officer of Wicket, said in a LinkedIn post Monday. "Credential holders simply take a selfie before they come, and then Wicket verifies their identity and checks their credentials with Accredit (a credentialing platform) as they walk through security checkpoints," Boehm added.

Wicket technology was deployed in a handful of NFL stadiums last year as part of a pilot program. Other stadiums will start rolling it out beginning on Aug. 8, when the pre-season kicks off. Some teams also have extended their use of the technology to scan the faces of ticket holders. The Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons and New York Mets all have used the company's facial authentication software to authenticate fans with tickets, according to Stadium Tech Report. "Fans come look at the tablet and, instantly, the tablet recognizes the fan," Brandon Covert, the vice president of information technology for the Cleveland Browns, said in a testimonial appearing on Wicket's website. "It's almost a half-second stop. It's not even a stop — more of a pause."
"The Browns also use Wicket to verify the ages of fans purchasing alcohol at concession stands, according to Wicket's LinkedIn page," the article points out.

And a July report from Privacy International found that 25 of the top 100 soccer stadiums in the world are already using facial recognition technology.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.
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NFL to Roll Out Facial Authentication Software to All Stadiums, League-Wide More

NFL to Roll Out Facial Authentication Software to All Stadiums, League-Wide

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  • And (Score:2, Insightful)

    by The Cat ( 19816 )

    The hand slowly closes around America's neck.

    • Re:And (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rtkluttz ( 244325 ) on Saturday August 03, 2024 @06:00PM (#64678718) Homepage

      This is bullshit. Verifying that a generic person has a right to be a certain area should not give them the ability to personally identify you. Buying a ticket somewhere should not mean that there has to be a real name tied to it and it is security theater if they say otherwise. Just like flying. It does not take knowing my name to make sure I don't have bombs and weapons. You don't need to know where I have been and where I am going. Fuck this communistic shit that everyone is doing this day and time.

      • > Just like flying. It does not take knowing my name to make sure I don't have bombs and weapons.

        Counterpoint: Knowing the identity of the people on a plane is kind of important if they need to identify the remains after a crash.

        But back to the topic at hand, face paint is a known and effective countermeasure to facial recognition systems. Good thing American Football fans aren't known for slathering themselves with paint I guess!
        =Smidge=

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by EvilSS ( 557649 )

          Counterpoint: Knowing the identity of the people on a plane is kind of important if they need to identify the remains after a crash.

          What business is that of theirs. If I want to be identified in the event of a crash, then I'll let them know ahead of time.

        • Counterpoint: Knowing the identity of the people on a plane is kind of important if they need to identify the remains after a crash.

          If only the airlines had some kind of meatbag manifest before takeoff... call it a 'passenger list' if you will. That might do the trick without unnecessary surveillance.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by jhoegl ( 638955 )
        Is it called communism when a company does this for their personal use?
        Id suggest you look up what apps are on your phone first and read their EULAs
        Id also suggest you look up your phones EULA
        Id also suggest you look up what happens to packets on the web, including URL lookups via DNS and how companies use that data.
        Id also suggest you look up EFF https://www.eff.org/ [eff.org]
        • Information wants to be free! This includes biometric information. Unless it's for verifying who is casting a political vote. Those have to be anonymous with no verification that you're allowed to cast the vote. Just sayin'.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        "You don't need to know where I have been and where I am going. "

        They don't need it, they want it, and they'll get it. You won't escape the omnipresent surveillance in this or any other society in 2024. You will be on file, if you aren't already.

      • It's not hard to figure that the "next one" will be an entirely inside job and all of the "theater" the passengers go will do no good. Do they rigorously check the employees? The pilots? I didn't think so. :-|

        • I have always said they are just making the issue worse. With all the security theater, they are just changing the point where the attack will happen. Instead of going after the plane itself (and only taking out a single plane), they will now target the security line and take out multiple planes worth of passengers. They have not made us one iota safer and yet they still want all our information.

          • This is exactly right. Since we increased security measures in the aftermath of 9/11, 23 years ago, look at the NUMEROUS attacks on security lines in airports. It's been an absolutely terrible situation, with most people I know being really afraid to stand in those lines because of just how deadly the attacks have been on them. I mean, look at the number of casualties we've had from such attacks in the last 23 years, it's literally ... Wait a second ... No, that can't be right.... Uh, Wait, this appar
            • I don't know where the whole security line business came from, but if there was an attack on the report itself, It probably wouldn't make much of a difference if you were in that line or not. But my original post was talking about passengers having to go through all of the security theater, while the employees are not so subjected to this kind of screening. And an inside job is most likely how another terrorist attack will happen. And we also need to stop assuming it will always be an Islamic extremist grou

            • Its not like there where large amounts of people dying from terrorism even on the year of 9/11 more people in the US got struck by lightning than died in 9/11.

              And there have been no incidents of people just driving into crowds of people. The reason why you don't have masses of people attacking queues is that there just aren't that many people who want to give up their lives to do that sort of thing, and never where.

      • Whine and bitch all you want, nothing will change. America is headed for a VERY dark place at a surprising speed. It is like everyone stopped reading at the same time and just decided to YOLO Fascism. (knowing history would have prevented this)

    • Yea, whoa, totally! This is something extremely Orwellian, at least in the way it was described.

      I didn't know the NFL have a fan violence problem.

      Next they will be checking your credit score and income. "I'm sorry Dave, I cannot allow you to buy a ticket. You see, you only make $45000 a year but from my calculations you spent over $600 at each game on tickets, souveniers,and food. I don't want you to spend all your money so you are not allowed to attend any game for the next two months and saved another

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by will4 ( 7250692 )

        Related data points:

        - Cities ban face coverings to help in using facial recognition, recordings of protests, etc. https://www.usatoday.com/story... [usatoday.com]

        NFL wants to record everything fans do to monetize it, advertise it, generate lifestyle profiles and build an extensive database of facial biometrics (along with the 'we don't store the photo after 20 days, but not say they store the biometrics needed for facial recognition')

        - Activist groups, funded by one party, collect, profile, investigate and build dossiers

      • The most that usually happens is a drunken fist fight. But we have to balloon the problem or just imagine new 9nes because there is money to be made with the whole apparatus. From the software and hardware to getting human bodies behind bars. There's profit to be had!

  • In China ... oh, wait. (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Saturday August 03, 2024 @04:48PM (#64678606)

    Well, the US did not experience real fascism. Yet.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by quonset ( 4839537 )

      These are private companies doing this, not the government. It's their property and they want to protect it. This is just an extension of having security cameras at businesses.

      Not that I agree with it, just explaining the difference.

      Hans Kristian Graebener = StoneToss

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by sound+vision ( 884283 )

        Private companies are, de facto, governing the United States.

        The difference between government oppression and private oppression is semantics. You're oppressed just the same.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by panda ( 10044 )

          Private companies are, de facto, governing the United States.

          This is the definition of fascism according to Mussolini:

          “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power."

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          The difference between government oppression and private oppression is semantics. You're oppressed just the same.

          It may seem like that at times but I guarantee you that there's at least one real difference. You can still successfully sue a misbehaving corporation. It may not be easy, you may need to join a class action but it is indeed still possible if you can prove genuine harm.

          • Good luck finding someone whom has standing to sue and hasn't agreed to the EULA / TOS that mandates predetermined kangaroo court judgements and forbids you from using the legal system in such a collective manner.

            Note: The lack of sarcasm tags is intentional.

      • ... having security cameras ...

        The next stop is refusing entry to fans with a low social-credit score: That at least, is fraud (assuming the fan already paid for entry), and at worst, creating a company 'town' where the corporation chooses the customer's rights.

        • Re:In China ... oh, wait. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by fahrbot-bot ( 874524 ) on Saturday August 03, 2024 @07:48PM (#64678870)

          The next stop is refusing entry to fans with a low social-credit score: ...

          That already exists. It's called not having enough money to buy a ticket.

          • My credit score is 0 because someone with my same name got a car from a used car dealer with their evidence of SSN being written in pen on a check cashing card and a court in Nevada City, CA awarded a judgement against me on that basis. I have only recently gotten out from beneath the bad credit and have got to the point where I have none. I have a job and can afford to go to a handegg game, but still wouldn't be allowed to under such a system.

      • It's their property and they want to protect it.

        It most certainly isn't their property (or at least it shouldn't be). Our tax dollars paid a good portion of the construction costs for many of these stadiums and it's not like the NFL or the teams don't have the fucking money to fund it themselves. If they did it without tax dollars, then I'd say have at it. Also, it doesn't say if this tech will be used for non-NFL events, such as concerts, at these stadiums.

      • It's their property and they want to protect it.

        It wasn't just "their property" when the construction bills were due- plenty of teams got states and/or municipalities to contribute big bucks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by schwit1 ( 797399 )

        "It's their property and they want to protect it."

        Not the stadiums bought with public funds.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      “Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles”

  • Being born after the age of computers began I often wonder how many layers of pointless, privacy invading, expensive, busywork-making, wasteful tech have been added to everything like some kind of lazagnia, and how many layers I will see piled on in my lifetime, and what it would be like if it was all gone.

    Would the murder rate skyrocket? Would the economy collapse?

    Who even really benifits from this software? It probably costs the stadiums money and makes a few people, like me, less likely to buy tickets.

    • Who even really benefits from this software?

      That's an easy one to answer. In a world where the enforcement of laws against property crime is no longer a priority for law enforcement or the judicial system, this type of technology gives private entities the ability to combat theft, fraud, and vandalism on their own, without bothering to call the cops. Private security teams will handle it instead.

      Where I live, you can wait for hours for police to show up unless someone has been shot. Their resources must

      • Their resources must be devoted ...

        Politicians no longer budget for police 'walking the beat' and voters, indirectly choose such policies. It's probably been 30 years since I saw a 'walk (actually bicycle) the beat' initiative. Many US states also mandate a policy of 'home defense' then complain "enforcing the law" is dangerous.

      • You're saying they're doing all of this to keep people from stealing from the stadium/eachother? I'm not sure where you live but in my city rampant crime at the stadium isn't a thing I've ever heard of. In fact I've never heard of any crime of any kind being purportrated near the stadium in the 20 years or so I've lived here.

        • People like to rag on America for violence, among other things. But how many NFL games end up with the stadium being set on fire and the riot squad (or the military) called in to quell the violence? This is exceedingly rare, and I don't remember any stands being set on fire in American football stadiums.. Compare that to "futbol" games everywhere else in the world that literally have established gangs of hooligans who start such trouble, even in countries that are supposedly "holier" and "better" than the U

      • It really makes you wonder if the EFF has any real grasp of modern technology and Moore's Law.

        You are bitching about the EFF and cannot realize that the police "prioritizing" violent crime, and leaving everyone else to fend for themselves with "lesser" crimes means your society has a shit ton of problems going on that should give everyone pause to reconsider how society does things? Or that technology is just being used to treat the symptoms and isn't the cause? Or that Moore's Law has nothing to do with crime rates?

        Maybe instead of bitching about the EFF, you should start bitching about why the

  • Another place I won't go. 0 reason for them to have my facial specs.

    • You know the grocery stores are rolling this out too, right? Even in your own yard, the neighbor's Amazon doorbell is probably watching you.

      • IMHO, the owner or leaser of a venue or store has a right to know and allow only people onto their property they want to. The method they do this by doesn't much matter. (They could, for example, alternatively have you present a photo ID in order to enter. This is what "club" stores like CostCo in the US have done for decades, but with club cards.)

        If it means the store doesn't have to put more and more items in locked cabinets that also hinders honest customers in addition to thieves, so be it.

        You can a

  • the NFL has that level of control over shared and publicly owned stadiums?

    • The fact that a stadium is either shared or publicly owned is irrelevant. While they're leasing the stadium, they're free to deny entry to anyone they want just like if you lease a venue for a wedding, you can likewise deny entry to anyone who doesn't present an invitation.

  • Probably another money grab coming (Score:3)

    by ThumpBzztZoom ( 6976422 ) on Saturday August 03, 2024 @05:27PM (#64678670)

    Privacy nightmares aside, I'm guessing that in the next few seasons tickets will be tied to your face, with a 25-50% "transfer fee" if you want to give it to someone else.

  • Special level of lazy and cheap. (Score:3)

    by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Saturday August 03, 2024 @05:39PM (#64678688)
    It's not like there are mobs of people with accreditation to special areas. They're gambling their inner security perimeter to shave maybe 5 total minutes off a screening process per game, because it's so hard to look at a photo and a face.

    • They're gambling their inner security perimeter to shave maybe 5 total minutes off a screening process per game, because it's so hard to look at a photo and a face.

      The only thing needed for entry is presenting a ticket. All of this pretend "security" bullshit is not enhancing security, it is preparing us to always be in a state of readiness when the inevitable call comes for, "show your papers".

      Fuck that nonsense. "They" have no need to know the identities of the people attending a game. They sold the tickets, that is enough.

      • In fairness, this is about the "backstage," not just the game. Identity actually does matter when it comes to giving people direct access to the athletes and league officials. Lot of money on the line. But I totally agree with you if it goes past that.

        • They said they are using the facial recognition for buying beer. I would have to guess that they are using it on everyone regardless of nearness to athletes.

          • Then it is definitely an info/power grab. First-order concern is that they'll be using it as a revenue stream by selling to data brokers. The government thing is later, but I agree it's inevitable once they start down that road.
  • NFL is basically BDSM. The league hates its viewers and abuses them as much as possible. I guess some people just love abuse?
    • American football is a 'beer and bros' game.. As in you need one or the other to actually enjoy it. The game itself is basically a conversation and celebration piece and for those who are obsessed over stats.
  • first: have private venues use biometric once the social majority is used to it, roll this to everyone

  • Is there a specific threat they're not telling us about or is there another ulterior motive they're not telling us about?

    Either way they're lying at least by omission.

    • You can write to the Department of Homelander Security for clarification. I'm sure the boys will be glad to explain to you in detail how dangerous your last visit to a sports event was.

  • Yeah (Score:2)

    by PPH ( 736903 )

    That's going to work out real well [tmz.com] with their fans.

  • "Credential holders simply take a selfie before they come, and then Wicket verifies their identity and checks their credentials with Accredit" I understand the problem with scalpers, ticket forgers, and folks who like to disrupt the game but being required to photograph yourself is ridiculous. How many people are going to be denied because they dont have the tech/skills to do that or are the wrong ethnicity(other than white). Youve bought your ticket, that is your right to attend. All the other problems ca

  • So they're tired of only being able to micromanage their players, and now want to micromanage the fanbase too. Glad I'm not involved, I haven't been able to watch football without feeling like I was watching gladiators ever since the extreme prevalence of brain damage came to light. I already wasn't watching boxing or MMA.

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