{"id":491569,"date":"2019-10-23T14:45:13","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T20:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=902844"},"modified":"2019-10-23T14:45:13","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T20:45:13","slug":"tom-morello-co-writes-op-ed-decrying-facial-recognition-tech-at-music-fests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/tom-morello-co-writes-op-ed-decrying-facial-recognition-tech-at-music-fests\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Morello Co-Writes Op-Ed Decrying Facial Recognition Tech at Music Fests"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tom Morello<\/a> has co-written an op-ed warning of the civil danger that facial recognition technology<\/a> poses on society as well as the efforts made by activists to ban the technology from music festivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine showing up at a music festival<\/a> or concert and being required to stand in front of a device that scans and analyzes your face,\u201d Morello and Fight for the Future<\/a> deputy director Evan Greer wrote for Buzzfeed News<\/a>. \u201cOnce your facial features are mapped and stored in a database, a computer algorithm could then decide that you are drunk and should be denied entry, or that you look \u2018suspicious\u2019 and should be flagged for additional screening. If you make it through security, facial recognition technology could then be used to track the minute details of your movements once inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this software accumulated at festivals could be used for \u201d strictly commercial purposes like showing you targeted ads,\u201d there also lies the danger that \u201cfestival organizers could be forced to hand this trove of sensitive biometric data over to law enforcement or immigration authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Morello and Greer note that Ticketmaster had invested in companies like Blink Identity, a facial recognition software startup created by defense contractors who have already assisted the U.S. military\u2019s efforts in Afghanistan. With the specter of facial recognition software and digital surveillance looming over music festivals, a petition was launched \u2013 successfully \u2013 to push organizers of the biggest U.S. fests to ban the technology from their respective events.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the last month, artists and fans waged a grassroots war to stop Orwellian surveillance technology from invading live music events. Today we declare victory,\u201d Morello and Greer wrote. \u201cOur campaign<\/a> pushed more than 40 of the world\u2019s largest music festivals \u2014 like Coachella, Bonnaroo, and SXSW \u2014 to go on the record and state clearly that they have no plans to use facial recognition technology at their events.\u201d<\/p>\n

At press time, dozens of major festivals \u2013 including Coachella, Bonnaroo, Governors Ball, Stagecoach, all Electric Daisy Carnival events, Austin City Limits and SXSW \u2013 have pledged they \u201cwon\u2019t use\u201d facial recognition technology at their festivals. However, Las Vegas\u2019 Life Is Beautiful, Burning Man, the iHeartRadio Music Festival and Outside Lands are among those that \u201cmight use\u201d the software, according to the Ban Facial Recognition site<\/a>; artists like Taylor Swift<\/a> and venues like New York\u2019s Madison Square Garden reportedly<\/a> already employ the technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurveillance profiteers who hope to make a lot of money selling facial recognition software to governments and private interests are now on high alert. They\u2019re watching closely for public reactions, running tests to see just how much intrusive monitoring we\u2019re willing to put up with,\u201d Morello and Greer warned. \u201cWe have a chance to stop the proliferation of surveillance technology that rivals nuclear weapons in the threat that it poses to the future of humanity. The clock is ticking.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Morello has co-written an op-ed warning of the civil danger that facial recognition technology poses on society as well as the efforts made by activists to ban the technology from music festivals. \u201cImagine showing up at a music festival or concert and being required to stand in front of a device that scans and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-491569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-music-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-22 03:18:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KQZR - The Reel","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491569\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}