The Rolling Stone he says: More than 100 artists, including Rage Against the Machine co-founders Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha, along with Boots Riley and Speedy Ortiz, have announced they are boycotting any concert venue that uses facial recognition technology, citing concerns that the technology violates privacy. and increases discrimination.
The boycott, organized by digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, calls for a ban on face-scanning technology at all live events.
Several smaller independent concert venues across America, including the House of Yes in Brooklyn, the Lyric Hyperion in Los Angeles and the Black Cat in DC, have also pledged not to use facial recognition technology. Other artists who have announced they will boycott the technology include Anti-Flag, Wheatus, Downtown Boys and over 80 additional artists. The full list of signatories is available here.
“Surveillance technology companies tout biometric data tools as 'innovative' and useful for increasing security effectiveness. This is not only false, but also morally corrupt,” said Leila Nashashibi, activist at Fight for the Future.
“For starters, this technology is so imprecise that it actually creates more harm and problems than it solves, through misidentification and other technical flaws. Even scarier, though, is a world in which all facial recognition technology works 100% perfectly — in other words, a world in which privacy is non-existent, where we are recognized, and tracked wherever we go…” Citi Field in New York as well as Cleveland's FirstEnergy Stadium, Miami's Hard Rock Stadium and San Diego's Pechanga Arena are among several venues around the country that have used facial scanning.
