Madison Square Garden’s Facial Recognition-Enabled Bans Now Being Targeted By Legislators, State AG

Late last year, it was revealed that MSG Entertainment (the owner of several New York entertainment venues, including the titular Madison Square Garden) was using its facial recognition tech to, in essence, blacklist its owner's enemies.

Those targeted included lawyers working for firms currently engaged in litigation against MSG Entertainment. Owner James Dolan, through his company's PR wing, stated these bans were meant to prevent adversarial litigants from performing ad hoc discovery by snooping around arenas under the auspices of event attendance.

That might have made sense if it only targeted lawyers actually involved in this litigation. But these blanket bans appeared to deny access to any lawyer employed by these firms, something that resulted in a woman being unable to attend a Rockettes performance with her daughter and her Girl Scout troop, and another lawyer being ejected from a Knicks game.

These facial recognition-assisted bans immediately became the subject of new litigation against MSG Entertainment. Some litigants were able to secure a temporary injunction by reaching deep into the past to invoke a 1941 law enacted to prevent entertainment venues from banning entertainment critics from attending events.

The restraining orders were of limited utility, though. Some affected lawyers still found themselves prevented from entering despite carrying copies of the injunction with them. And the law itself has a pretty significant loophole: it does not cover sporting events, which are a major part of MSG Entertainment's offerings.

While possibly legal (given that private companies can refuse service to anyone [for the most part]), it was also stupid. It looked more vindictive than useful, with owner James Dolan punishing anyone who had the temerity to be employed by law firms that dared to sue his company. It's robber baron type stuff and it never plays well anywhere, which you'd think someone involved in the entertainment business would have realized.

Now, the government is coming for Dolan and his facial recognition tech-based bans. As Jon Brodkin reports for Ars Technica, the state attorney general's office is starting to ask some serious questions.

[AG Letitia] James' office sent a letter Tuesday to MSG Entertainment, noting reports that it used facial recognition software to forbid all lawyers in all law firms representing clients engaged in any litigation against the Company from entering the Company's venues in New York, including the use of any season tickets."

We write to raise concerns that the Policy may violate the New York Civil Rights Law and other city, state, and federal laws prohibiting discrimination and retaliation for engaging in protected activity," Assistant AG Kyle Rapinan of the Civil Rights Bureau wrote in the letter. Such practices certainly run counter to the spirit and purpose of such laws, and laws promoting equal access to the courts: forbidding entry to lawyers representing clients who have engaged in litigation against the Company may dissuade such lawyers from taking on legitimate cases, including sexual harassment or employment discrimination claims."

The AG's office also expressed its concerns about facial recognition tech in general, noting it's often plagued with biases and false positives." It's a legitimate concern, but perhaps AG James should cc the NYPD, which has been using this plagued with bias" tech for more than a decade.

Dolan/MSG's plan to keep booting lawyers from venues is now facing another potential obstacle. City legislators are prepping an amendment that would pretty much force MSG to end this practice.

New Yorkers are outraged by Madison Square Garden booting fans from their venue simply because they're perceived as corporate enemies of James Dolan," the bill's sponsor, state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, told the Daily News.

This is a straightforward, simple fix to the New York State civil rights law that would hopefully prevent fans from being denied entry simply because they work for a law firm that may have a client in litigation against Madison Square Garden Entertainment," he added.

It is a simple fix. The bill would take the existing 1941 law - the one forbidding entertainment venues from banning critics - and close the sporting event loophole. That would pretty much cover everything hosted by MSG, which would make Dolan's ban plan unenforceable.

Of course, none of this had to happen. If Dolan and MSG were having problems with adversarial lawyers snooping around their venues, they could bring this to the attention of the courts handling these cases. A blanket ban of entire law firms did little more than anger the sort of people you generally don't want to piss off when there's litigation afoot: lawyers. What looked like a cheap and punitive win now looks like a PR black eye coupled with a brand new litigation headache.