Madison Sq. Backyard garden CEO doubles down on use of facial recognition tech



CNN
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The chief government of the Madison Sq. Garden Enjoyment Company has doubled down on utilizing facial recognition at its venues to bar lawyers suing the group from attending functions.

Speaking to Fox 5 on Thursday, MSG Government Chairman and CEO James Dolan mentioned Madison Square Garden is a non-public organization and as a result entitled to establish who is authorized to enter its venues for functions.

“At Madison Square Yard, if you are suing us, we’re just asking of you – please really do not come until eventually you’re done with your argument with us,” he explained. “And indeed, we’re working with facial recognition to enforce that.”

His opinions occur immediately after New York Lawyer Standard Letitia James on Wednesday despatched a letter to MSG Leisure requesting data regarding its use of facial recognition technological know-how to prohibit authentic ticketholders from coming into venues. The letter reported the attorney general’s office environment has reviewed reports MSG Entertainment has employed facial recognition to discover and deny entry to various attorneys affiliated with law firms associated in ongoing litigation with the corporation. The letter implies 1000’s of attorneys from close to 90 legislation companies may possibly have been impacted by the plan, and explained the ban contains these holding season tickets.

The attorney general’s letter raised the concern that banning individuals from accessing venues in excess of ongoing litigation may violate neighborhood, point out, and federal human legal rights rules, together with legislation prohibiting retaliation. The letter also concerns irrespective of whether the facial recognition software package made use of by MSG Leisure is reputable and what safeguards are in spot to stay away from bias and discrimination.

In a push launch, James reported, “MSG Amusement are unable to fight their lawful battles in their personal arenas. Madison Square Yard and Radio Metropolis Audio Corridor are environment-renowned venues and should really handle all patrons who procured tickets with fairness and regard. Anybody with a ticket to an event should really not be concerned that they could be wrongfully denied entry based on their overall look, and we’re urging MSG Enjoyment to reverse this plan.”

MSG Entertainment owns and operates numerous venues in New York, which includes Madison Sq. Yard, Radio Town Audio Corridor, the Hulu Theater, and the Beacon Theatre. Madison Sq. Backyard is the house of the New York Knicks, Rangers, experienced boxing, and faculty basketball groups.

In a statement Thursday, an MSG spokesperson instructed CNN, “To be clear, our coverage does not unlawfully prohibit any individual from moving into our venues and it is not our intent to dissuade attorneys from representing plaintiffs in litigation against us. We are simply excluding a modest proportion of lawyers only throughout lively litigation.”

“Most importantly,” the spokesperson added, “to even recommend any individual is currently being excluded centered on the safeguarded lessons identified in state and federal civil rights guidelines is ludicrous. Our policy has under no circumstances applied to lawyers symbolizing plaintiffs who allege sexual harassment or employment discrimination.”

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Extra facial recognition know-how claimed in non-white locations of NYC: Amnesty Intercontinental

A lot more CCTV cameras with facial area recognition abilities were being observed in New York City boroughs and neighborhoods with larger concentrations of non-white people, according to new investigation by human rights team Amnesty Global.

“Our assessment exhibits that the NYPD’s use of facial recognition engineering helps to enhance discriminatory policing towards minority communities in New York Metropolis,” Matt Mahmoudi, an synthetic intelligence and human rights researcher at Amnesty Intercontinental, reported in a assertion to ABC News.

“The surprising get to of facial recognition know-how in the metropolis leaves total neighborhoods exposed to mass surveillance,” he added. “The NYPD should now disclose just how this invasive technological innovation is made use of.”

In a discussion about experience recognition technological know-how, New York Metropolis Law enforcement Division Deputy Commissioner John Miller explained to ABC Information that the victims of violent crime in the town are “overwhelmingly” persons of shade.

“They not only should have but desire that police answer to reports of criminal offense and apprehend those people liable,” Miller stated.

Amnesty International’s results are dependent on crowdsourced facts received as component of the Decode Surveillance NYC undertaking, which mapped a lot more than 25,500 CCTV cameras throughout New York Metropolis. The details was gathered involving April 14, 2021, and June 25, 2021.

The project’s aim was to obtain surveillance cameras in New York Metropolis and expose in which folks are most most likely to be tracked by facial area recognition engineering (FRT). Amnesty International then worked with data experts to review this details with stats on cease, concern and frisk guidelines and demographic data.

Prevent-and-frisk guidelines let officers to stop, problem and pat down anybody considered to be suspicious.

The analysis uncovered that the areas intensely populated with CCTV cameras proved to be at higher danger of halt-and-frisk methods by law enforcement. Some folks have criticized this policing tactic as discriminatory. In 2019, 59% of those people stopped by law enforcement as component of quit and frisk were Black and 29% have been Latino, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which cited NYPD details.

According to data collected by the United States Census Bureau in July 2021, of individuals living in New York Metropolis, 24.3% were Black and 29.1% had been Latino.

In a statement to ABC Information, Miller explained that stop and frisks “have been down over 90% for above eight several years.”

“Numerically, the considerably much less stops that are nonetheless created are based mostly on descriptions of people today supplied by crime victims who are most typically customers of the community exactly where the end is built,” he stated.

Miller additional that these varieties of stops lead to the NYPD’s latest level of gun arrests — “the highest amounts in 25 many years,” he explained — which is important because “homicides are up by fifty percent, and shootings have doubled.”

Nonetheless,

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