Madison Square Garden compiled a list of activists who have publicly criticized the venue’s use of facial recognition technology, putting their tweets and comments into a document that was then accessible to other people inside the company, 404 Media has found.
The news shows that MSG, operated by Jim Dolan who has garnered a reputation for being pernicious against his perceived enemies, is not only deploying controversial facial recognition technology but keeping track of specific people who take issue with it. The document was included in a 45GB cache of data hackers stole from MSG
and posted online this month
, which 404 Media then downloaded and reviewed.
“The wake of a data breach would be a good time for Madison Square Garden to stop subjecting its patrons to biometric surveillance,” Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and one of the people included in the document, told 404 Media.
The document, titled “Facial Recognition Activists.docx” and included in a folder named “Activists,” lists three people who have criticized MSG’s use of facial recognition: Evan Greer, director of digital rights group Fight for the Future; Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP); and the EFF’s Schwartz. All three of the activists have been quoted in major media articles discussing MSG’s facial recognition technology, including
in NPR
and
The New York Times
.
In each section, the document includes background information on the activist, their contact information if available, their social media handles and follower count, then quotes each have previously said about MSG’s facial recognition program. The document also includes screenshots of several of Greer’s relevant tweets. One says, “Hey New Yorkers, who are the coolest people on the NYC city council who might wanna introduce a facial recognition ban like the one in Portland, OR that would stop Madison Square Gard

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