Taylor Swift’s concert that was held at California’s Rose Bowl this year in May used a facial recognition system tomonitor the crowdand track her stalkers present in the event.
A report byRolling Stonessays that the facial recognition system wasbuilt into a kioskthat showed highlights of her rehearsals. It had scanners whichsecretly recordedthe faces of onlookers.
Mike Downing, chief security officer of Oak View Group said, “Everybody who went by would stop and stare at it, and the software would start working.”
After scanning the faces of the attendees the data was sent across 2000 miles to a “command post” in Nashville, Tennessee that attempted tomatch the collected imageswith hundreds of images of known Taylor Swift stalkers.
It isn’t clear whether the collected footage was kept, or if managed identify any real stalkers. Even if it did, what actions were taken against those who were identified is unknown.
The news of US artists implementing facial recognition tech at their concerts hasn’t been publicized before. However, as far as thelegality of this actis concerned, Swift is on the right side of the law.
Technically, a concert is a private event so event organizers are allowed to subject their attendees to almost any kind of surveillance.
Even though the security measures taken at Taylor Swift’s event could be considered extreme, it isn’t the first when facial recognition technology has been used to weed out unwanted people.
