Ban All the Lawyers?
Facial recognition technology and its uses.
A weird one via memeorandum from NBC 4 in New York: “Face Recognition Tech Gets Girl Scout Mom Booted From Rockettes Show — Due to Where She Works.”
A recent incident at Radio City Music Hall involving the mother of a Girl Scout is shedding light on the growing controversy of facial recognition, as critics claim it is being used to target perceived enemies — in this case, by one of the most famous companies in the country.
Kelly Conlon and her daughter came to New York City the weekend after Thanksgiving as part of a Girl Scout field trip to Radio City Music Hall to see the Christmas Spectacular show. But while her daughter, other members of the Girl Scout troop and their mothers got to go enjoy the show, Conlon wasn’t allowed to do so.
[…]
Conlon is an associate with the New Jersey based law firm, Davis, Saperstein and Solomon, which for years has been involved in personal injury litigation against a restaurant venue now under the umbrella of MSG Entertainment.
“I don’t practice in New York. I’m not an attorney that works on any cases against MSG,” said Conlon.
But MSG said she was banned nonetheless — along with fellow attorneys in that firm and others.
“MSG instituted a straightforward policy that precludes attorneys pursuing active litigation against the Company from attending events at our venues until that litigation has been resolved. While we understand this policy is disappointing to some, we cannot ignore the fact that litigation creates an inherently adverse environment. All impacted attorneys were notified of the policy, including Davis, Saperstein and Salomon, which was notified twice,” a spokesperson for MSG Entertainment said in a statement.
[…]
Davis is now upping the legal ante, challenging MSG’s license with the State Liquor Authority.
“The liquor license that MSG got requires them to admit members of the public, unless there are people who would be disruptive who constitute a security threat,” said Davis. “Taking a mother, separating a mother from her daughter and Girl Scouts she was watching over — and to do it under the pretext of protecting any disclosure of litigation information — is absolutely absurd. The fact they’re using facial recognition to do this is frightening. It’s un-American to do this.”
A spokesperson for MSG reiterated in a statement that safety is their highest priority and that facial recognition is just one of the methods they use. MSG Entertainment also said it is confident their policy is in compliance with all applicable laws, including the New York State Liquor Authority.
The technology is new enough that we likely don’t have much in the way of settled law. This would certainly seem to violate the spirit of public accommodation. Still, lawyers are not, so far as I’m aware, a protected class.
Unless there’s far more to the story than has been reported—a decided possibility—MSG’s policy makes no sense. Aside from the fact that Davis works for a huge firm and is not involved in the case against MSG, what is it that a lawyer would glean from watching a Rockettes performance that they couldn’t via ordinary discovery?
Beyond the specific case, should private companies even have access to this sort of technology? It seems inherently problematic. Indeed, most of the images I find looking to illustrate the post are of Chinese people, owing to the PRC’s extensive use of the technology as part of its “social credit” scheme.
Glad you brought this up. While lawyers aren’t a protected class, there exist laws, particularly in NY, that require public accommodations to all, unless the venue can demonstrate that the individual is a risk.
Sports fans on reading this and seeing that the venue is MSG, aka, Madison Square Garden, will shrug and say, if figures. James Dolan has been treating Knicks’ fans, shabbily for years, tossing out season ticket holders that criticize him or the team.
I read about this elsewhere, and people in the comments pointed out that MSGE (Enterprises) is the same organization that owns the Knicks–and they ban former players from coming to games.
It’s apparently the policy of James Dolan (the CEO) to be quite petty.
How far away are we from facial recognition powered permanent bans? Act out in one store and get banned, and then the ban is enforced in every store the parent corporation owns. As an example, there are two or three corporations that own the bulk of the large grocery grocery stores between them.
Quick note. Some airlines, notably Delta, are experimenting with biometrics, including facial recognition, to replace boarding passes.
There’s a good article over at ArsTechnica on this, as well as good analysis in the accompanying comments. The consensus is that some clown at MSGE has kicked a hornet’s nest and will not like the result.
You know, facial recognition is new and, uh, sexy, but I don’t think it’s all that relevant here. The questionable practice is denying entry to someone for questionable reasons. (Which I’m guessing will hold up in court, but its debatable).
The question which is forefront of my mind is how does one contest facial recognition? Also, how was FR used? Did it simply raise an alert, which a human then reviewed and made the decision? That seems likely.
@Jay L Gischer: The top question in my mind is much creepier: how did MSGE have a photograph database of all the people in that law firm, even ones that are not connected with any of the MSG cases? If some petty overlord had some minions slave over LinkedI n pages tracking everyone down, well, petty but not disturbing. But if facial recognition databases exist where I can just say, “identify anyone from this company or group”, well, that IS disturbing.
We often don’t realize that the future is already here until we are embedded in it.
@MarkedMan: Recently, I’ve been waxing nostalgic about various people I’ve known over the years who practiced, or even became adepts at, law. You might be surprised at how many firms have photo directories of their staffs down to the clerical level. That they could get her picture wasn’t surprising. That the cared to and used it as a weapon was petty in the extreme.