Taylor Swift Uses Facial Recognition Technology At Her Concert To Monitor Stalkers

Last May, Taylor Swift held her concert at California’s Rose Bowl where she used facial recognition technology to track her stalkers.

The facial recognition software was set up inside a kiosk which is used to display Swift’s rehearsals’ highlights. This recognition system then secretly filmed concert-goers’ faces. According to the Rolling Stone which had a conversation with a concert security officer, onlookers who laid their eyes at the kiosk were scanned immediately. After that, the data was transmitted to a “command post” located in Nashville, Tennessee. At this “command post”, analysts will try to match hundreds of onlookers’ images to a database of her stalkers.

US artists have not publicly announced the use of facial recognition technology at their concerts. However, the legality of using a facial recognition system is on the side of the artist. Because a concert is considered a private event, onlookers can be subjected to almost any type of surveillance.

The extent to which Taylor Swift used her security measures was extreme. However, this is not the first time for facial recognition technology to be used to be alert to unwanted concert-goers.

Last April, the Chinese police enforcement arrested a 31-year-old defendant who tried to hide among almost 60,000 people at a show at Nanchang International Sports Center. The arrest was carried out smoothly mostly because of China’s own monitoring system called “Xue Liang/Sharp Eyes”, which was used to monitor its citizens’ movements.

In the United States, with facial recognition tech, many advancements are being made for public events. For instance, Ticketmaster plans to use facial scan tied to your seat instead of traditional tickets. The technology is still under development. The next time you go to see a Marvel film, you might not have to scan your face. But in the future, tickets might be replaced by your face.