from Hacker News

Facial recognition tech gets woman booted from Rockettes show due to employer

by 04rob on 12/20/22, 3:13 PM with 655 comments

by kstrauser on 12/20/22, 6:18 PM
I’m thrilled to see facial recognition applied against people in a position to speak out loudly against it. A lot of people seem OK with it when it’s policing the bad parts of town. This is their reminder that it can be used against them, too.
by Waterluvian on 12/20/22, 7:17 PM
With the merge being approved, there were now only four Corporations. Sure, there were many off-world Corps, but they didn't have any meaningful affiliations and were really just a novelty for Roamers. Everyone, from birth, was employed by a Corp. Mind you, employment doesn't endow a title, salary, benefits, or duties. It just meant you were permitted access the various amenities it provided: transportation, tech, telcoms, housing, food, water, and of course, a social access permit.
Corps are a lot like the "Sponsored Nation" concept from the 2300s, but without the discrete geographical boundaries. This makes it, by design, as some argue, too easy to find one's self in violation of Corporate policies. Usually someone makes a wrong turn or enters the wrong door and winds up in front of an Adjudicator.
Since the merger, however, enforcement of overlooked policies has been on the rise. Given the complexities of the merge conditions, it became very difficult to remember who was employed by whom, which inevitably led to misassociation with non-colleagues. What used to be a social faux pas, paid for with a sheepish smile, would now find you among the Unemployed.
by vleon42 on 12/20/22, 4:57 PM
I am torn actually unsure on what would be morally correct:
1. I, as an individual, am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike from my private property.
2. I, as an individual, am allowed to deny entry to persons affiliated with a business I dislike from my private property.
3. I, as a business owner (eg: a restaurant), am allowed to deny entry to persons I dislike (eg: a previous patron who was violent) from my business.
4. I, as a business owner (eg: a restaurant), should I not be allowed to deny entry to persons affiliated with a business I dislike (eg: the next door restaurant employee who is copying my menu) from my business?
by kayodelycaon on 12/20/22, 6:55 PM
This reminds me of an incident that showed up in one of my college courses: A forklift driver who got fired for drinking Budweiser.
He worked for a company that Miller Brewing company contacted with and a newspaper took a photo of him at a public event drinking Budweiser.
Different situation, same kind of pettiness and retaliation.
by mannykannot on 12/20/22, 4:34 PM
"A spokesperson for MSG reiterated in a statement that safety is their highest priority and that facial recognition is just one of the methods they use. MSG Entertainment also said it is confident their policy is in compliance with all applicable laws, including the New York State Liquor Authority."
Why do spokespersons frequently speak in non-sequiturs? They simply underline the absence of any good argument. I hope it isn't because many people don't realize this, though I fear it might be so.
I also hope the second sentence will turn out to be as logically incoherent as the first.
by benreesman on 12/20/22, 9:50 PM
The Constitution wasn’t designed for this. The framers did an amazing job at writing documents and expressing ideals that have held up astonishingly well through insane technological change.
But if I want my face catalogued next to my social credit score why not go all in and move to China?
It’s not great but the only mechanism in sight that seems equipped to deal with this is restraint semi-enforced by social consensus. God knows Congress isn’t going to do anything: piss off both law enforcement and tech? Yeah I think that’s a hard pass from them.
by tomatotomato37 on 12/20/22, 5:40 PM
Everyone always goes for the discrimination angle, but what frightens me is that like other modern automated tech of this decade the facial recognition used here probably has a horrendous false positive rate which most institutions will none the less treat as the final truth. Unrelated this is also why I fear most of this new AI stuff so much despite working in the field; the accuracy rates on these things in production is atrocious.
by dehrmann on 12/20/22, 4:58 PM
Interesting. I think she knows she has no case, but realized her eviction put them in violation of their liquor license, fighting back where it really hurt. Banning lawyers might not be the best idea.
by jt2190 on 12/20/22, 6:23 PM
> Conlon is an associate with the New Jersey based law firm, Davis, Saperstein and Solomon, which for years has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment.
> "I don’t practice in New York. I’m not an attorney that works on any cases against MSG," said Conlon.
> But MSG said she was banned nonetheless — along with fellow attorneys in that firm and others.
by whoopdedo on 12/20/22, 6:16 PM
What does the Bar have to say about being a customer of a business you're suing. Wouldn't this be more of a concern for the law firm than the venue?
But I can see how this has a chilling effect if you can lose access to goods and services because you're taking legal action against the company. Reminds me of the story I heard, though I forget the details (or even if it was true), about someone retaining numerous law firms which made it nearly impossible to find a lawyer who could sue them without it being a conflict-of-interest.
by TheHappyOddish on 12/21/22, 1:38 AM
> The fact they’re using facial recognition to do this is frightening. It’s un-American to do this.
Funny, that's the opposite of what I thought. Corporate revenge via technology sounds very American to me.
by nraynaud on 12/20/22, 6:41 PM
So if someone sues a subsidiary of the group they are banned in the entire group?
That must be really tickling the layers when it's time to ask for damages in civil cases: "well, we're asking to hold the entire group in solidarity for damages, since they conduct business in solidarity, whatever subsidiary we are actually naming in the suite".
by namaria on 12/20/22, 7:57 PM
The problem here is not facial recognition or AI. The problem is automatic and opaque enforcement of arbitrary rules with no recourse. It's a scary world where you can be approached by private security and forced to comply without recourse because "the system" flagged you. This dehumanizes us. We're creating a world where people are being treated like cattle, merely handled by systems beyond our capacity to fight back.
by godelski on 12/20/22, 6:17 PM
How did they identify her? Where is MSG getting the data for their facial recognition? This part is confusing to me (I assume some third party vendor, but that's besides the point). Do they have you upload a photo of yourself? Do they have access to driver license photos? If the latter, that's a serious issue that I think we should be talking about: private companies having access to government biometric data. It's already an issue that the gov can track us, but even bigger if they are giving that data to corporations. I think that's the bigger story here.
by crmd on 12/20/22, 5:44 PM
The legal rights of a corporation should rapidly decrease as it gains market power. My neighborhood bar should be allowed to 86 me for just about anything, but Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Ticketmaster, and Live Nation should not. Same thing with google and Amazon banning people from their platform for a single good faith credit card chargeback.
by bewaretheirs on 12/20/22, 5:10 PM
Many organizations (including the Girl Scouts) have required chaperone-to-kid ratios for trips like this.
Booting one chaperone from a trip could put the entire party out of compliance with the organization's policy and require exclusion of some fraction of the group or possibly cancellation of the trip.
Typical Girl Scout policy here:
https://www.gsnorcal.org/content/dam/girlscouts-gsnorcal/doc...
(Note the requirement that at least one chaperone be female and at least two of the chaperones be unrelated, and note that if you have to split the girls you probably need to send a minimum of two chaperones with each half..)
by stickyricky on 12/20/22, 6:12 PM
Businesses which sell to the public should provide accommodation for the public. Bad actors should be handled by the legal system. When their sentence expires they should be allowed to re-enter the public spaces they previously disrupted. A private "legal system" administered by global conglomerates is totalitarianism by another form.
by plusminusplus on 12/20/22, 6:02 PM
"we cannot ignore the fact that litigation creates an inherently adverse environment"
For discussion, let's take MSG's statement in good faith, and assume the attorney was notified twice.
Are there legitimate reasons to do this other than a "pretext for doing collective punishment on adversaries who would dare sue MSG" as suggested?
by reaperducer on 12/20/22, 5:43 PM
Up next: Everyone on HN who posted that they disagree with MSG's use of facial recognition is permabanned from all MSG venues, with no notice or recourse.
by tedd4u on 12/20/22, 5:01 PM
How do you suppose they got her photo (and associated it with her identity)? Is there someone at MSG (or their facial recognition vendor) whose job it is to look her up on Facebook (Or her employer’s “about” page)?
by arunc on 12/21/22, 6:47 AM
Face recognition was used to identify a lawyer who works for a company involved in actively suing MSG group. She was booted due to her being a lawyer at that company. Her identify was flagged. She was visually identified and then her id was checked.
IMHO, it’s a bullshit story because the issue is whether a lawyer working for a company suing MSG should be booted from other MSG venues.
Companies/venues had blacklists (deny lists) before face recognition became ubiquitous.
by baxtr on 12/20/22, 8:24 PM
She wasn’t allowed to a show because she is working as a lawyer.
> Conlon is an associate with the New Jersey based law firm, Davis, Saperstein and Solomon, which for years has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment.
"I don’t practice in New York. I’m not an attorney that works on any cases against MSG," said Conlon.
But MSG said she was banned nonetheless — along with fellow attorneys in that firm and others.
by latexr on 12/21/22, 12:55 PM
> It’s un-American to do this.
No, no it is not. It is very much American. The one thing more American than that situation is Americans saying something bad is un-American. You are what you do, not what you say. US Americans need to get their heads out of the sand and stop being blinded by the con of American exceptionalism. You’re not better than others, you’re not revered, other countries don’t look up to you. You are not a bastion of freedom or justice. You are a country drunk on its own kool-aid, being played by the worse people you have to offer. You need the courage to admit you’re not who you thought. Only then can you enact change to who you want to be.
Quoting George Carlin: “they call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it”.
by pfoof on 12/20/22, 6:53 PM
So they discriminated a lawyer to not get sued? Doesn't that sound like they just jumped into an anthill?
by gregors on 12/20/22, 6:25 PM
The reason why we have "protected status" is that people were banning people based on their racist/hate views. Those people used their 5 senses to easily target the people they hated for discrimination. Other variables (such as who you work for) well that's not easily found out...until now. AI is now allowing for new innovating hate and discrimination to drive decisions.
What an absolute cluster. I don't envy the courts. It's going to be interesting if everyone starts weaponizing every aspect of political affiliation, employment, residence location and social status.
by js2 on 12/20/22, 11:24 PM
I can see two viable ways to prevent this from happening without taking sides on whether or not businesses should be allowed to deny service to non-protected classes of people.
1. A laser-targeted law banning facial recognition technology used for the sole purpose of denying service.
2. Not letting corporations get as large as MSG in the first place.
I'm a fan of (2). If there's one thing I would hope people across the political spectrum could agree on it's that the Federal government has seriously fallen down on its anti-trust authority.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Square_Garden_Entertai...
by nashashmi on 12/20/22, 10:21 PM
Her legal case:
> A sign says facial recognition is used as a security measure to ensure safety for guests and employees.
Use of facial recognition is disclosed with a reason for its purpose. They used the same technology for a different purpose without full disclosure. This is grounds for a violation, although civil. IANAL.
However, she is going about this through another route. Liquor license does not allow them to eject people from service. MSG has a civil policy they will not allow anyone (including lawyers) associated in litigation to enter their venues. Obviously both policies contradict at this point.
My opinion is no one should have any policy that allows lawyers of parties to a lawsuit to be hurt in any way.
by Nifty3929 on 12/20/22, 9:25 PM
I think it would be helpful in the comments to separate the issue of using facial recognition for public identification and entry, from the other issue of whether this person should have been allowed in regardless of the policy.
Personally I don't think facial recognition should be allowed for public identification.
On the other hand, I think it's perfectly fine to bar opposing attorneys actively working against you from entering your business. This is not a member of the "general public" and wasn't denied entry based on identity characteristics. She was banned because she (her firm) is SUING THEM. That seems like a pretty good reason right there...
by josephcsible on 12/20/22, 6:58 PM
I feel like the facial recognition part of this is a red herring. The two bigger problems I see here are banning people because of what their co-workers are doing, and enforcing bans when people show up instead of when they buy their tickets.
by CosmicShadow on 12/20/22, 9:43 PM
The fucked thing about this is that as it's normalized and justified it allows companies and venues to start blocking people it doesn't like for whatever reason and essentially banishes them from society for life.
Critical of Ticketmaster online and they start to take notice? I guess you wont' be allowed into most venues or concerts for life on this continent. We also won't tell you why you were banned or offer a way out (because that's how Google and Facebook operate and it suits us). It's allowing people to be kicked out of "real world" walled gardens.
by monksy on 12/20/22, 5:18 PM
So I have been rejected and "banned" from a MSG venue. It's not fun, and it has nothing to do with your behavior.
It was at the Chicago Theather and it was the Chris Rock show back in 2017. I bought the ticket, I don't believe that it had any special restrictions [this was a long time ago], the ticket had no indications about the "phoneless"/phone encasing demand. The event page didn't say anything about this. However they were trying to force this. I refused
Why did I refuse? The Bataclan attack* happened less than 2 years before this and mobile phones did [it was reported at the time] help people communicate for help and escape. This is a big venue, and I certainly don't trust a venue who doesn't trust their ushers who can't get people to stop filming. Think they're going to know how to call the cops/handle an emergergcy? lol.
What happened? Since I was denied, I asked for a refund from the venue. The main security guard corralled me against the wall, waited for the manager, the manager argued with me and refused refund [even despite the ticket saying nothing about this, their overall policy said nothing about this [I checked to see if I could bring my small camera with me]], when the manager left to get an artist rep she felt the need to "ban me" to another security guard, they got a "artist rep" trying to argue against me using "well this is the artist's preference". (Why they brought out the stupid artist rep is beyond me)
Ultimately I lost that 80$ and will shit talk Chris Rock, any venue, and any artist who uses the yondr device.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks
by bluelightning2k on 12/20/22, 10:07 PM
On the one hand this sounds super dystopian.
On the other hand it does kind of make sense that they would refuse service to people actively suing their company. I would do that too. I mean it's kind of common sense
by Moto7451 on 12/20/22, 6:19 PM
Yesterday’s Dolan Family Drama: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34044818#34060122
by MBCook on 12/20/22, 6:06 PM
We all know how this works. It’s perfectly legal until someone in congress is impacted, then legislation will suddenly appear about this “new horrible invasion of privacy”.
Similar to the video rental privacy act.
by insane_dreamer on 12/20/22, 9:31 PM
I don't like the consequences of facial recognition tech and what it's going to do to our society and its potential to enhance social discrimination of all kinds, but I have a hard time faulting the venue for using it to enforce an (arguably reasonable, or at least legally viable) admittance policy that had been communicated beforehand to the law firm. This doesn't seem to be a case of discrimination.
by _boffin_ on 12/20/22, 6:52 PM
Question: if she purchased the ticket under her own name and she held a valid ticket upon entry to the venue, would it be fraud if one doesn’t get access to the event? Even more so if she doesn’t get a full refund?
One would presume that there would be measures in place during checkout that would inhibit transactions that go against their policies to not go through.
by ngoilapites on 12/21/22, 5:25 AM
I can't help it, I see lots of recent corporate developments as a whole new set of "middle-age"-attitudes that permeate in society. This is one of them. Another is Elon's personal & professional mixed events. There is a whole new bunch of things happening in this direction.
by yieldcrv on 12/20/22, 5:02 PM
One angle is the liquor license
Another angle is their insurer
Another angle is their payment processor
You can likely get them back into community expectations
by jasmer on 12/20/22, 5:46 PM
Who the hell even thinks to do any of this? Why are people so stupid and petty?
I mean, I'm thankful to live in a place where we are too boring to even think of these kinds of shenanigans. We have our own but they are not as bad.
by itronitron on 12/20/22, 4:40 PM
This is a service I think some parents would be eager to sign up for, although since the woman kicked out was chaperoning a school field trip it seems like poor judgment on the part of MSG.
by spritefs on 12/21/22, 5:22 AM
The weirdest thing about this to me isn't that they kicked her out because of the litigation, but that they were able to see who she was based off of the facial recognition alone
Like where do they get this data from in the first place? From a data broker? Is it possible to request to have facial data removed from the data broker?
Did she consent to them using facial recognition technology on her at the venue? (If this isn't already a law, that is to say requiring consent... it should be)
by methodover on 12/20/22, 7:35 PM
Dystopian SaaS idea: Integrate facial recognition and Yelp reviews. If someone shows up who gave you a negative review, send a text to staff and/or deny sale at POS.
Please, no one make this.
by contentboot on 12/23/22, 12:44 PM
I read the article and I have read a lot of comments here.
I couldn't find a single reference to where the data set came from that trained the model they are using to do facial recognition.
Someone did theorize that it could be taken from a hypothetical law firm website but IIRC a single photo of someone is not good enough to reliably train a model that is not overfit.
by EchoReflection on 12/20/22, 11:36 PM
Time to start wearing "anti face recognition masks"
https://www.liberties.eu/en/stories/anti-facial-recognition-...
https://www.survivopedia.com/6-ways-to-defeat-facial-recogni...
What a crazy world we live in...
by Sugimot0 on 12/21/22, 3:33 AM
Another chapter in the corporate hellscape of the US. Now your job search includes research on corporate factions and their relations, any outting you attend is preceded by research of corporate ownership and faction relations or security measures in place in order to know if you can attend or attempt to bypass said measures.
by ipaddr on 12/20/22, 5:19 PM
Facial recognition by private entities used to police a public venue should be restricted or outlawed
by melony on 12/20/22, 8:28 PM
Many open source software license have an automatic revocation clause in the event of litigation too. Considering the viral nature of software libraries, that could make life very difficult for people too.
by mensetmanusman on 12/21/22, 2:22 AM
We laugh about China doing this on a massive scale, except it involves things like basic travel and food. Now, we will start doing it to ourselves.
by nraynaud on 12/20/22, 8:28 PM
can someone explain a bit the reasonning behind banning opposing lawyers from the defendant's venue?
I feel like it's to reduce "on the ground" discoveries in civil cases, but I don't understand why, as far as I know those are neither forbidden nor unethical, there is a later opportunity to debate whether those discoveries gets introduced as evidence in the case.
by nullish_signal on 12/21/22, 2:28 AM
"Davis is now upping the legal ante, challenging MSG’s license with the State Liquor Authority."
Ah, the Devil is always in the Details.
by fortran77 on 12/20/22, 11:39 PM
I'm not sure I'd want people who worked for a company that was currently suing me entering my business either.
by dbttdft on 12/20/22, 10:08 PM
How does some bar theater whatever have a database of where people work? This is broken as fuck.
by gonzo on 12/20/22, 9:59 PM
"You have zero privacy anyway, get over it.” — Scott McNealy, then CEO of Sun, Jan 1999
by adaml_623 on 12/21/22, 11:19 PM
The biggest US law firm Baker McKenzie (just googled this) has almost 5000 lawyer. Would they be safe from this policy due to the bureaucratic nightmare involved in adding that many faces to the system??
It would also be very interesting if the law firms that were litigating MSG started putting 'different' faces on their employee websites... a little bit of misinformation could cause lots of issues.
by tasubotadas on 12/20/22, 6:41 PM
That's another one for we-are-getting-closer-to-1984-dystopia bingo.
by sidewndr46 on 12/20/22, 11:59 PM
This seems pretty cut and dry to me. If someone had a lawsuit against me, one of my businesses, or the like I wouldn't allow them or their employees into my establishments.
If there is a need for them to be there, law enforcement will be accompanying them.
by MonkeyMalarky on 12/20/22, 4:19 PM
A lawyer and a Rockettes show today, could be an angry tweeter and their tesla tomorrow or your Facebook post and a healthcare provider.
by tmpburning on 12/20/22, 10:46 PM
Facial recognition and car tags should be illegal (among many other tracking methods).
by vagabund on 12/20/22, 4:24 PM
As unsurprising as it is absurd if you're familiar with the petulant child that is James Dolan.
by irrational on 12/20/22, 4:44 PM
> It’s un-American to do this.
This seems like a very American thing to do all of this. The lawsuit, the facial recognition, the counter lawsuit. So very American.
by 1970-01-01 on 12/20/22, 6:23 PM
A lawyer was banned from seeing a popular show for reasons entirely unrelated to physical safety, with an FR twist. She then hit back at their liquor license. Who's got popcorn??
by hnuser847 on 12/20/22, 4:37 PM
TL;DR A personal injury lawyer ("in a wreck, need a check?") was banned from an attending a show. She attended anyway and was asked to leave. Computers were involved.
by gedy on 12/20/22, 4:36 PM
I morbidly enjoy this idea, but only as an extreme form of tort reform.
by JackFr on 12/20/22, 7:46 PM
Seems like it’s an unpopular opinion, but it seems fairly reasonable to me to restrict someone who is currently, actively suing you from using your place of business.
It’s neither punitive nor petty. It’s simply practical from a legal perspective.
by SpaceManNabs on 12/20/22, 8:26 PM
Yet the audience of hacker news typically leans on hating any sense of ethics in AI (check my recent comment history). This is a problem. We need to take ethics in AI seriously.
by dragonsky67 on 12/21/22, 2:58 AM
So security have received an alert on a person. They start rushing for that person. There would be a significant proportion of the population who would find that uncomfortable if not scary, who is to say how they will react. The person runs away, or does something that the guards think is threatening. The guard pulls a gun and shoots the person... All because they happened to be employed by a company that the venue has decided they don't like.
by happytoexplain on 12/20/22, 5:00 PM
>MSG instituted a straightforward policy that precludes attorneys pursuing active litigation against the Company from attending events at our venues until that litigation has been resolved.
While it's reasonable to disagree with this policy, it's not really related to social dystopia, so I think it's dramatic to lament this in the vein of "today it's this, tomorrow it will be getting banned due to Tweeting about your politics", or whatever. I mean, yes, that may happen, but the only thing concerning about this case is the tech itself, and not necessarily the rationale under which it was deployed.
by sneak on 12/20/22, 5:10 PM
Covid is still around. Always wear your mask in public.
Don't show ID unless it's a cop demanding it (when it's legally required). Private parties can't demand ID. Don't give ID for routine transactions. Practice saying no to routine demands for your papers.
It doesn't improve unless a lot of us start ending the transactions.
by habibur on 12/20/22, 4:38 PM
Employee - Employer is here a lawyer based on the law firm. Before you click the title and waste your time.
by defen on 12/20/22, 4:29 PM
Radio City Music Hall is a private venue, they can ban or exclude anyone they want, as long as it's not due to membership in a protected class. You don't have a right to attend a Rockettes show, and if she doesn't like this policy she can start her own Christmas Spectacular show.