https://gizmodo.com/mgs-facial-recognition-msg-rockettes-show-1849919528
An attorney working for a law firm taking legal action against MSG Entertainment claims she was spotted by the company's facial recognition security system while attending a Rockettes show with her daughter and was ultimately denied entry. The case, one of the first of its kind according to a privacy expert speaking with Gizmodo, sheds light on an underreported practice of private companies using biometric identification systems to carry out retaliatory policy prescriptions amid a wildly under-regulated biometrics environment.
The lawyer, a mother named Kelly Conlon, reportedly traveled to New York City with her daughter as part of a Girl Scouts field trip to see "The Christmas Spectacular." Conlon claims she was apprehended by the venue's security staff immediately after walking through metal detectors and asked to say her name and provide an ID. One of the guards, Conlon said in an interview with NBC New York, allegedly told her she was "picked up" by their recognition system.
Conlon told NBC New York she saw signs on the wall alerting guests facial recognition was in use. For context, MSG Entertainment, which runs Radio City Music Hall, reportedly started introducing facial recognition to venues in 2018 in an effort to "bolster security." Since then, the technology's grown increasingly popular at live events and large sports stadiums.
"They knew my name before I told them," Conlon told NBC New York." They knew the firm I was associated with before I told them. And they told me I was not allowed to be there."
[...] "It was embarrassing, it was mortifying," Conlon said. "I was just a mom taking my daughter to see a Christmas show."
"[...] While we understand this policy is disappointing to some, we cannot ignore the fact that litigation creates an inherently adverse environment," MSG added. "All impacted attorneys were notified of the policy, including Davis, Saperstein and Salomon, which was notified twice," a spokesperson for MSG Entertainment said in a statement.
[...] "I'm terrified of a world where every corporation can retaliate against whistleblowers and even those leaving bad reviews by banning them going forward," Fox Cahn said.
And that world seems to be coming. Surveillance firms previously interested in working with law enforcement adapt their technology to serve the private sector. Clearview AI, one of the world's most notorious facial recognition companies, recently announced its intention to pivot to selling its one-to-one "Clearview Consent" facial match system to schools, banks, and other private firms. Those types of environments allow surveillance firms the opportunity to stay afloat in the security business while distancing themselves from police and other law enforcement groups who've burned public trust in recent years. At the same time, firms like MSG risk welcoming a similar wave of consumer trust by essentially monitoring their every move.
Related Stories
MSG probed over use of facial recognition to eject lawyers from show venues
The operator of Madison Square Garden and Radio City Music Hall is being probed by New York's attorney general over the company's use of facial recognition technology to identify and exclude lawyers from events. AG Letitia James' office said the policy may violate civil rights laws.
[...]
In December, attorney Kelly Conlon was denied entry into Radio City Music Hall in New York when she accompanied her daughter's Girl Scout troop to a Rockettes show. Conlon wasn't personally involved in any lawsuits against MSG but is a lawyer for a firm that "has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment," NBC New York reported.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 25, @07:11PM
Time was, smaller theaters, smaller populations, less going on overall, the theater security would know about an ongoing lawsuit, would know the lawyers personally, and would recognize them on sight without AI augmented video surveillance.
In the future, big law firms may choose to send photo id databases to opponents openly disclosing which employees are and are not involved in the ongoing case, and any "mistakes" would result in rather crippling barring of evidence collected by persons disclosed incorrectly...
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(Score: 1) by XivLacuna on Sunday December 25, @07:14PM (3 children)
Some beneficial uses I can think of are keeping those underage people out of bars, casinos, or other venues they are restricted from. Casinos have been doing this for a long time with people they consider cheaters like card counters.
This article is written to elicit an emotional reaction in our brains. "How dare they prevent a mother, who happens to be a lawyer who works for a law firm that they are engaged in lawsuits with, from attending something with her child?!?!"
Logically if you are part of an organization that files lawsuits against another organization you might be banned from their facilities, no matter how many emotional modifiers you apply to the situation. "Woman, mother with child, embarrassed"
MSG Entertainment has no way to be sure she isn't there to look for something to sue them about and she is associated with people who have sued them. They aren't excluding her because of a protected status like race, gender, or orientation.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by lentilla on Sunday December 25, @10:57PM (1 child)
That's how humans work.
If I were worried about drag-netting damaging a marine ecosystem, my press release would show dead baby dolphins. Marine biologists may be primarily concerned with habitat loss to benthic crustaceans and the subsequent effect on the food chain, but baby dolphins resonate with normal people - and to make any change in the world you need normal people "on board" and the best way to do that is to find a way to illustrate the issue to them. So baby dolphins it is.
Kicking someone out of a gig is just another example of a dragnet operation, this time with a mother and daughter as by-catch.
Well, they certainly made sure to hand her something on a platter.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Monday December 26, @10:27PM
You see a photo of a dead baby dolphin, you're looking at the top of the food chain and bad luck, but you look at a dead benthic crustacean -- immobile sea *floor* organisms that eat what floats down to them -- and see that they're having problems, that scarifies me as to how much of the foundation of the ocean has been undermined.
I guess it's like putting your foot through a floorboard vs seeing evidence of termites in the crawlspace. I think I've been doing troubleshooting too long.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26, @04:49PM
It's not MSG Entertainment's business why she is there. And you can say the same about the motives of any paying customer. Also there will be bad optics if someone gets hurt by someone who got through that facial recognition security. I imagine the story would go something like "caring more about harassing lawyers than in stopping criminals".
The smart move would have been to be agnostic about the issue. It was a dumb move to let MSG's legal department run security. It's an even dumber move to double down on it and attempt to rationalize the policy publicly now that the story hit the media.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25, @07:21PM (15 children)
Classic slippery slope. The policy was justified on the basis of protecting its customers and used instead to harass rival litigants. Here, it doesn't make sense on two levels - first, the litigation involved a restaurant not this venue. Second, the lawyer wasn't involved at all - I wonder how much data and biometrics did the MSG security hoover on this law firm?
Finally, why in the world did they think this was a good idea to abuse the system such? I think this will bite MSG in multiple ways. That sounds like the litigants might have a huge discovery (legal court procedure for pulling information from another side) opportunity because there's a good chance of some privacy violation perhaps even HIPAA (the US regulations on medical information handling).
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday December 25, @08:05PM (4 children)
How do you figure HIPAA plays into this?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25, @08:53PM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday December 25, @10:35PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26, @04:18AM (1 child)
"A person" not a "covered entity".
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday December 26, @06:18PM
and from your own quote:
It can not be in violation if they do not obtain the information from a covered entity. For example, a reporter cannot be found in violation for reporting on a disabled person and referring to their disability, even without their permission. Or reporting on someone who loses an arm in an accident. Photographers are not responsible for HIPAA for taking photos of people in public with disabilities.
You really need to stop playing armchair lawyer here. The law is well explained online as to who is and is not covered and what information is and is not protected. You are just wrong.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 25, @08:25PM (5 children)
HIPAA applies only under limited circumstances. MSG Entertainment isn't a healthcare provider, pharmacy, or health insurance company, so it isn't a covered entity.
HIPAA has been misapplied to harass street photographers [pressclubinstitute.org] since before the pandemic. It isn't a magic word that grants people magical amounts of privacy.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 25, @08:34PM
HIPAA was made to be misapplied, particularly for anything any health care provider wants to cover up, but really it is used by any and all persons of minor authority to throw their weight around.
There should be significant penalties for the misappropriation of HIPAA to be an uncooperative asshole. First clue that they didn't pay attention to a real training is when they spell the acronym like Hippo but ending in a single A.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25, @09:36PM (3 children)
While I dispute that "covered entities" are the only entities covered by HIPAA, I'll argue that any database scooping significant medical data even indirectly would run afoul of the healthcare clearinghouse [nist.gov] category (which is also a covered entity as above):
Notice the "including" indicating that the definition goes beyond your short list. And notice the use of the phrase "facilitates". If you scoop a bunch of information and turn it into a database from which you can readily extract medically relevant information, you are facilitating.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday December 25, @10:41PM (2 children)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday December 26, @04:25AM (1 child)
Or they are a covered entity.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday December 26, @06:11PM
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 25, @08:29PM (3 children)
>to harass rival litigants.
Turnabout is entirely fair play. Want to sue over a legal point? Prepare to be resisted, harassed, ridiculed and otherwise annoyed up to the limits of what is presently legally permitted.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25, @09:44PM (2 children)
What turnabout? It's one thing to block a litigant from something relevant like your offices or shut them out of a service that they're suing about. It's different to use your market power and surveillance technology to block them from public venues that are irrelevant to the legal point.
And I think we see the huge drawback to that approach. MSG just admitted that they collected a massive amount of information about the law firm in question and its staff and are using it for dubious purposes. As I noted, this opens them up to discovery requests about what was collected and whether it violates existing law.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday December 25, @10:12PM (1 child)
>use your market power and surveillance technology
Irrelevant.
>this opens them up to discovery requests about what was collected and whether it violates existing law.
Sure does. Want to wrestle a pig? You'll both get muddy. The pig enjoys that, do you?
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 25, @10:14PM
Given that this law firm has been in this lawsuit for years, I bet they want to wrestle that pig pretty badly.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday December 25, @09:15PM
Scouting failed.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design