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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 16 2018, @12:41PM   Printer-friendly
from the do-I-know-you? dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow0245

Concertgoers will soon live in their own personalized version of hell above and beyond the Ticketmaster convenience fee. Live Nation, Ticketmaster's parent company, recently announced a pilot program to ditch tickets in favor of advanced facial recognition technology.

For the pilot, Ticketmaster partnered with Blink Identity, a Texas-based biometric company that previously worked to implement biometric security programs in both Afghanistan and Iraq. The company claims it can make a positive ID in "half a second," even if those being scanned aren't looking directly at its cameras. Once scanned, the system flies through a potential database of tens (or hundreds) of thousands of attendees in an attempt to make a positive ID. Only then will it grant entry to the event.

Replacing physical (or digital) tickets with advanced biometrics systems, as you might have guessed, isn't without its critics.

Source: https://thenextweb.com/insider/2018/05/15/ticketmaster-plans-to-roll-out-facial-recognition-systems-for-events-what-could-go-wrong/


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by messymerry on Wednesday May 16 2018, @12:54PM (9 children)

    by messymerry (6369) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @12:54PM (#680371)

    passwords can be changed. Biometrics are forever. Jumping with both feet into this boiling stew of dangerous ideas is foolhardy at best. We should approach using biometric data with caution. Pandora's box is being opened and we are pulling as hard at the lid as we can. Sadly Govt which has assumed the mantle of moderator and protector is heavily conflicted in this. They want the biometric data as much or more than the corporate fascist asshats that are collecting it.

    Is the water feeling warmer to you too???

    ;-D

    --
    Only fools equate a PhD with a Swiss Army Knife...
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by datapharmer on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:22PM (5 children)

      by datapharmer (2702) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:22PM (#680378)

      I had my face transplanted you insensitive clod.

      • (Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:32PM (2 children)

        by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:32PM (#680385) Homepage Journal

        Wow, this is just starting. The pilot project, right? And here we have a guy, the scalpers already cut off his face. Very scary!

        • (Score: 4, Funny) by SomeGuy on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:40PM (1 child)

          by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:40PM (#680393)

          So does an orange tint confuse facial recognition? :P

          • (Score: 2) by arslan on Thursday May 17 2018, @03:26AM

            by arslan (3462) on Thursday May 17 2018, @03:26AM (#680613)

            a Texas-based biometric company that previously worked to implement biometric security programs in both Afghanistan and Iraq

            Very likely since the test was done a demographic which is decidedly not orange in tint. However, between all the turbans and beards, it may very well work on the hipsters - very well indeed.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:48PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:48PM (#680486)

        You need to ask for a refund.

      • (Score: 2) by kazzie on Wednesday May 16 2018, @07:05PM

        by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 16 2018, @07:05PM (#680489)

        Is that called a faceplant?

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:22PM

      by nobu_the_bard (6373) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:22PM (#680432)

      Face can change-
      Aging, injury, disease, cosmetics, surgery, etc.

      Coworker at the data center couldn't get in the other day, because the facial recognition system they have apparently learned his glasses, and he replaced the old broken ones recently. They said that's practically a daily occurrence.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:34PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:34PM (#680459) Journal

      Time to Interdict before Deployment.

      Just get a court injunction against this stuff before it starts, and forbid any city to allow installation at any venues.

      Play the Muslim Woman card.
      Play the Witness Protection card.
      Play the Black card.
      Play the boycott venue and playbill card.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:26PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @06:26PM (#680479)

        I think we can be a little more subtle that a jihad hijab niqab.

        Depends on how much Ticketmaster has donated to the DNC lately.

        If they haven't payed enough protection money, the race card will be played off the bat. It's easy. Did anyone ever corroborate and refute the charge that Apple failed to use black people in its training set? I mean, it seems entirely plausible that Apple would have fucked up something like that... but after looking into the narrative that police violence affects only blacks and finding that it's barely true (not quite pants on fire in my view but hey)... anyway, what I'm suggesting is that whether or not Ticketmaster's system actually does have more trouble with black faces than faces of other races, the media could easily make it sound like it's a problem that impacts only black people.

        But that doesn't help anybody who lives in the real world instead of on the reality TV show that is mainstream media news press.

        The only demographic that we can hope will provide us with a mass, democratically organized resistance to this is the demographic that is expected by Western beauty standards to wear makeup. If I were in that demographic, I'd submit a picture of myself with no makeup on to Ticketmaster when I buy the ticket. Then I'd go to the concert with makeup applied, maybe taking some fashion hints [cvdazzle.com] from privacy aware makeup artists. Then when I can't get in to the concert, I could network with thousands of other people in the same boat as I and launch a class action lawsuit. Not sure if whites in the demographic that's expected to wear makeup in public have entirely fallen out of favor in the media, but if they haven't, I'll bet the DNC controlled media would be happy to do a vicious smear campaign against Ticketmaster and publish headline after headline about how everybody who works at Ticketmaster is a creepy pasty white incel alt-right soy boy homosexual micropenis neonazi who can't get laid, and that's why they intentionally designed the system from the ground up to be hateful of the demographic that's expected to wear makeup in public.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:13PM (2 children)

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:13PM (#680376)

    I have been predicting the use of facial recognition in conjunction with purchasing for some time.

    Imagine in 10 or 20 years, every Walgreens, CVS, Kroger or other store that normally require consumer tracking cards will use facial recognition instead. And consumers will love it because it lets them buy things (that are marked up to twice their normal price) for half of the price!

    And after that it will be absolutely everywhere because youcantbetoosafethinkofthechildrenpollywannacracker.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:33PM (1 child)

      by mhajicek (51) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:33PM (#680507)

      Twins will have free access to each other's financials.

      --
      The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2018, @04:09AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2018, @04:09AM (#680619)

        Twins will have free access to each other's financials.

        Almost. The evil twin will have access to the other one's financials after being sufficiently annoyed by the facial recognition system to murder him/her earlier than originally planned.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by rigrig on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:18PM (2 children)

    by rigrig (5129) Subscriber Badge <soylentnews@tubul.net> on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:18PM (#680377) Homepage

    Right now they just scan the ticket barcode, and whoever arrives first with a particular ticket gets in, even though all online-bought tickets have your name on it. (probably because asking everyone for ID takes too long)
    Apart from the minor annoyance of a few clever entrepreneurs double-reselling their digital tickets, this also creates a serious problem: tickets aren't actually bound to a single person, so they can be re-sold without Ticketmaster getting a cut.
    By utilizing facial recognition, tickets can be valid only for exactly one person, with the only possibility of re-sale being through Ticketmaster, which will re-issue the ticket to a different person (for a modest fee).

    --
    No one remembers the singer.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:42PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:42PM (#680462) Journal

      Right now they just scan the ticket barcode, and whoever arrives first with a particular ticket gets in,

      And by and large there have been few problems with this approach.

      (Sure high dollar events (Superbowl) have seen ticket scams. But these are fixable with ticket vendors using methods to prevent ticket duplication instead of relying on barcodes.)

      This new proposal has NOTHING to do with that issue. Its not about ticket security.

      This is aimed at getting rid of scalpers, and the whole scalper market.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Wednesday May 16 2018, @07:20PM

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 16 2018, @07:20PM (#680492)

      In some instances they're getting very strict.

      In the UK, a woman bought tickets for her daughter and son-in-law to watch a musical in London. (Hamilton, IIRC) Only after buying the tickets did it become apparent that she was required to turn up at the venue an hour before the performance to exchange her booking reference for her tickets. That's obviously to discourage touts from reselling tickets, but it meant a several-hundred-mile round trip to London and back, and being an unintended tagalong on her daughter's day out. But there's more...

      Because touts were turning up to collect their booked tickets and passing them straight on to their (paid-up) customers, the promoters of this musical were also stipulating that the ticket buyer had to watch the show, meaning that the woman in question was facing having to buy a third ticket and sit-in on the show in order to be able to use the two tickets she'd already bought!

      (Apparently touts are now block-booking, say, 10 seats for such a performance, and increase their markup on nine tickets to cover the cost of the tenth ticket they have to use themselves.)

      I heard this story on BBC Radio 4's Moneybox programme a few months ago. Unsurprisingly, after the media got involved, the promoters decided to let the woman transfer her tickets without further outlay or expense.

  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:25PM (5 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:25PM (#680380) Journal

    You cannot enter, asyou are already here. You can't enter twice.
    Please stop trying to use someone else's face.

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by riT-k0MA on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:35PM (3 children)

      by riT-k0MA (88) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @01:35PM (#680388)

      You make a valid point. What happens to identical twins?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @02:36PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @02:36PM (#680400)

        What about Carlos the Jackal?

        There was an experiment run at a superbowl in the early 2000's where attendees had around 80% chance of being identified as Ilich Sanchez. Can't find a citation although I remember it from the green site and the technology doesn't appear to have improved. [arstechnica.com]

      • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday May 16 2018, @03:12PM

        by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @03:12PM (#680406) Homepage Journal

        They'll eventually patch the software for that. But if you're an identical triplet, you're fucked.

        --
        If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:08PM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:08PM (#680500) Journal

        Actually point is off target.

        The purpose (dubious as it may be) here is to make sure that the ticket matches the buyer. (That the ticket is used only once is assumed.)

        It is not to assure that any given buyer enters only once.
          Joe Germophobe can buy three tickets (to assure no one sits beside him), enter, exit, enter, exit enter a again, once with each ticket. (Exit and re-entry would be a pointless exercise, simply postulated here for completeness).

        Each entry exhausts one ticket. Facial reco should/would not object, because Joe's face matched each ticket.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Wednesday May 16 2018, @03:50PM

      by etherscythe (937) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @03:50PM (#680417) Journal

      I gave a free Guy Fawkes mask to the guy who bought my ticket. He found it hilariously ironic.

      --
      "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @03:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 16 2018, @03:27PM (#680412)

    You don't have to worry about me going to any of your concerts, Ticketmaster. I'm not trusting some MIC dataminer with my beloved face. As if Ticketmaster wasn't already bad enough.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:24PM (2 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:24PM (#680434)

    Ticketmaster is effectively a monopoly for large-venue big-name rock concerts. Through contracts, it effectively prevents any competitors from forming. Those contracts should be illegal, but aren't.

    So, kids, whatcha gonna do? Skip out on seeing those shows, or continue to put up with that kind of treatment? For those on the fence, let me remind you that (a) Youtube exists and every idiot there is with their videocamera on trying to get a shot of the show, and (b) you can do drugs at places other than rock concerts.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:04PM

      by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:04PM (#680452) Journal

      Or go to small venue shows and enjoy yourself more.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:50PM

      by frojack (1554) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @05:50PM (#680465) Journal

      Through contracts, it effectively prevents any competitors from forming. Those contracts should be illegal, but aren't.

      Easy to solve. Ticketmaster does not own venues. Venues are in Cities. Cities need merely outlaw the installation of facial recognition controlled gates at any venue in their jurisdiction. Violation of privacy.

      (And I wouldn't put it past Ticketmaster to contract for a Bataclan event to change local government's mind).

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 4, Funny) by requerdanos on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:32PM

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 16 2018, @04:32PM (#680436) Journal

    Ticketmaster, Facial Recognition, What Could Go Wrong?

    It might sound like a nitpick, but frankly you *started out* by saying "Ticketmaster", so the question should probably become "What *else* could go wrong?". That would take a little re-wording to work, but it's redundant as is.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:46PM

    by frojack (1554) on Wednesday May 16 2018, @08:46PM (#680509) Journal

    The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 109, [cornell.edu] provides that an individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from the copyright holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner. The right to distribute ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. See 17 U.S.C. § 109(a) & (c). Since the first sale doctrine never protects a defendant who makes unauthorized reproductions of a copyrighted work, the first sale doctrine cannot be a successful defense in cases that allege infringing reproduction.

    Its easy to see that a ticket to a play, game, concert is a purchased right to partake of a copyrighted performance.
    First sale states that the seller exhausts his rights once the ticket is sold.
    The buyer gains the right to one seat at that performance, and has the right to gift, sell, barter it one time.

    (First Sale is now widely applied in the courts, to books, sheet music, not limited to solely phonograph records as its wording may suggest.)

    Specifically This page: https://www.msk.com/newsroom-publications-1114 [msk.com] (UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Augusto,) addresses a situation where a person made a business out of selling legitimate "promotional" (gifted) copies of music CDs (all of these were originals, manufactured by the studios). He sold them as collectors items, even though the jacket of these CDs said transfer/sale was prohibited. The resale of these collector's items was held to be non infringing, even though there was no initial sale, rather they were gifted.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Thursday May 17 2018, @06:50AM

    by SanityCheck (5190) on Thursday May 17 2018, @06:50AM (#680648)

    What if there are two people at the stadium with "a face only a mother could love", wouldn't that cause issues? And there will be at least a dozen "butter-faces".

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