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Musicians, festivals and venues join campaign to ban facial recognition at concerts

Digital rights group Fight For The Future are spearheading the campaign

Musicians, festivals and venues have joined the campaign to ban facial recognition at concerts.

Recently, it was announced that Ticketmaster, owned by Live Nation, the same company as Bonnaroo and Electric Daisy Carnival, would be investing in facial recognition technology.

Digital rights advocates, Fight For The Future, have started a campaign entitled Ban Facial Recognition, opposing the introduction of the technology to venues, events and clubs.

Listing the possible repercussions of facial recognition technology in the US, Ban Facial Recognition highlighted the deportation of migrant festival go-ers, privacy issues, such as matching images of event go-ers to their home addresses and purchasing details, event go-ers names and details in a permanent government database, and the mis-identification and harassment of people of colour, as potential issues.

Since the announcement of Ticketmaster's investment, industry figures and fans have shared their support for the Ban Facial Recognition campaign. Among the artists to support the movement are The Dresden Dolls' Amanda Palmer, Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello, The Glitch Mob, and Anti-Flag. Over 30 organisations have also pledged to support the cause, including Greenpeace, Detroit Digital Justice Coalition and MediaJustice.

DJ Mag recently investigated facial recognition technologies, after UK venues began to introduce the system. We looked into who stores and profits from the data collected, and asked whether the UK government could work with private companies to make it more common.

You can find out more about Fight For The Future's campaign here.