Controlling the Herd
Concerts and Sports Stadiums Now Using Iris and Fingerprint Scans to Track and Trace Fans
Right now the service is mostly optional, but as with everything else in this vein, eventually it won’t be. And the teams and companies admit the technology is being used to track fan behavior and increase sales.
It’s bad enough we can’t go to any major events in this country without having our bags thoroughly checked and having to walk through scanners and possibly get wanded and patted down like the guilty-until-proven-innocent potential criminals we all are.
Now everything from concerts to baseball stadiums are instituting biometric fingerprint and iris scans.
Some programs work in concert with Homeland Security, giving line-skipping perks to people who also sign up for TSA’s PreCheck program (see how that works?).
There are multiple different programs running at stadiums across the country (here are a few via Bloomberg):
Safran SA’s MorphoTrust USA Inc. signs up travelers for the TSA’s PreCheck program, which entitles passengers to five years of streamlined airport screening after submitting to a background check, providing biometric data and paying $85. Since last year, MorphoTrust has been funneling PreCheck members into express security lanes at concerts under a contract with promoter Live Nation Entertainment Inc., said Charles Carroll, senior vice president for identity services.
Iris-scanning equipment developed by EyeLock LLC is being used by the NBA’s Indiana Pacers at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, and by the University of Houston’s football program.
Right now the service is mostly optional depending on where you go; Disney requires fingerprints of the whole family including your children, but claims they don’t store them in a database (you buy that?).
As with everything else in this vein, eventually it won’t be optional. And the teams and companies admit the technology is being used to track fan behavior and increase sales (Bloomberg again):
Those fingerprints and iris scans also allow teams to track fans’ behavior and purchasing habits, helping them rake in more revenue and fatten profits while triggering at the same time the privacy concerns that dog this sort of technology in other parts of the economy…
To think this is just a way to skip to the front of the line in exchange for a little biometric information is naive at best. These scans are populating databases (FBI’s new biometric “center of excellence,” anyone?) and being used to track and trace you like a mouse in a maze.
They always trickle privacy and freedom-killing measures like this in slowly… normalize it… then make it mandatory when they’ve got the majority of people used to it and willing to accept it.
We’re inching ever closer to this scene in Minority Report every day:
Are you ready?
Enjoy the show.
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