Over a hundred artists have signed a pledge to boycott venues that use face-scanning technology. A couple months ago, nonprofit organization Fight For The Future launched the campaign to draw attention to venues that use facial recognition technology, and so far artists like Tom Morello, Zack De La Rocha, Boots Riley, Wheatus, Anti-Flag, and more have signed the pledge.
The campaign began in earnest after the news broke last year that Madison Square Garden was using the technology to kick out legal adversaries from the venue. "This invasive biometric surveillance isn’t safe, especially for Black and brown people who have been falsely arrested or ejected from public places due to the tech’s baked-in discrimination," the pledge reads.
"In recent years, a coalition of musicians, fans, and human rights groups successfully got more than 40 of the world’s largest music festivals, including Bonnaroo and Coachella, to say they won’t use facial recognition at events," the pledge continues. "But now this tech is starting to spread -- not only as a surveillance tool, but also as a form of ‘paperless’ ticketing and payment."
As alluded to, this is not the first time that artists have pushed back against the technology. In 2019, a number of festivals announced that they would not use facial recognition after a similar protest from Fight For The Future.
