Ticketmaster Jumps Into Facial Recognition Game
Thursday, May 10, 2018 at 07:33AM This is pretty terrible. Ticketmaster has invested in a company called Blink Identity. Blink is a brand claims to be able to identify people walking by in “half a second.” You apparently don't even have to look directly at a camera for Blink to identify you.
Why does this matter? Because Ticketmaster (and Live Nation) wants to go "ticketless" in the future and use facial recognition instead for entry to shows and events. This means Ticketmaster will have to create a massive database of our faces and names and hold that data forever... and probably give it to the government and whichever rogue state feels like hacking us. I guess it also means concert venues and the like would have to be outfitted with some crazy surveillance equipment. I guess this also means the job of ticket scanner will be going away too. Why pay humans to do anything anymore, right?
The other thing lost here? No more ticket stubs to collect. I guess that makes me sound like an old fool, but it seems sad. And no more scalpers, right?
Face Detection and Recognition: Theory and Practice
Reader Comments (16)
just another reason to avoid the big venues. on the bright side, it should let every participating venue allow in and outs for all the shows.
In 1984, the Totalitarian Party used technology to monitor its members at all times. They used "telescreens" and hidden microphones all over the Country. 1984 reveals that technology, while generally perceived as working toward a moral good, it can also facilitate diabolical harm.
It should be noted that 1984 was published in 1949, well before the age of technology.
This sort of step is just part of the natural process. Waving your fists at it is like kicking a cotton gin or cursing the day cars replaced horses. Lest we forget, progress is most often about streamlining and simplifying systems. We don't mind too much when that makes our immediate circumstances smoother. We start feeling froggy when it doesn't and/or when it feels like an imposition we don't want (as if corporations are beholden to our every need and want).
The bigger issue is whether or not we are set up to properly handle such shifts in processes (in terms of job creation and in terms of privacy). Like it or not, we opted in the moment we all (myself included) started reciting Biafra's chant of "Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death!" Guess what? You got it.
Besides, Rouge State would be a great glam band name!
- Allyson
I have noticed slowly but surely over the last few years the corporate powers that be are driving us toward becoming a fully automated self-service society.
Soon it will be ALL self driving cars (so what if some people get killed in testing!), 100% cashless transactions, ticketless airlines travel, fully automated customer service, virtual hotel check-in and robot cops and security services, etc. Most of it either already exists or is being developed and/or refined as we speak!
We are being force fed change every minute all in the name of progress. It’s just a matter of time until we will be conditioned to listening to music that will all sound like Kraftwerk and Brian Eno. “The Matrix” and “Westworld” anyone?
remember, Reading is for mentals.
So, if studying 1984 isn't for you, try watching the true-life documentary HBO movie, Snowden, which chronicles Edward Snowden's struggle with compliance versus dissension. Should one adhere to government policies and supervisor's directives or 'do the right thing' for the greater good.
He is now exiled in Russia...quite telling.