100 Bands Including RATM Boycott Venues Using Facial Recognition Technology

Rolling Stone reports:Over 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 that they are boycotting any concert venue that uses facial recognition technology, citing concerns that the tech infringes on privacy and increases discrimination. The boycott, organized by the digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, calls for the ban of face-scanning technology at all live events. Several smaller independent concert venues across the country, including the House of Yes in Brooklyn, the Lyric Hyperion in Los Angeles, and Black Cat in D.C., also pledged to not use facial recognition tech for their shows. Other artists who said they would boycott include Anti-Flag, Wheatus, Downtown Boys, and over 80 additional artists. The full list of signatories is available here. "Surveillance tech companies are pitching biometric data tools as 'innovative' and helpful for increasing efficiency and security. Not only is this false, it's morally corrupt," Leila Nashashibi, campaigner at Fight for the Future, said in a statement. "For starters, this technology is so inaccurate that it actually creates more harm and problems than it solves, through misidentification and other technical faultiness. Even scarier, though, is a world in which all facial recognition technology works 100% perfectly - in other words, a world in which privacy is nonexistent, where we're identified, watched, and surveilled everywhere we go...."New York venue Citi Field as well as Cleveland's FirstEnergy Stadium, Miami's Hard Rock Stadium, and the Pechanga Arena in San Diego are among several venues across the country that have used face-scanning. Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike for sharing the story.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.