Thousands of people lined up outside Citi Field in Queens, New York, on Wednesday to watch the Mets face off with the Orioles. But outside the ticketing booth, a handful of protesters handed out flyers. They were there to protest a recent Major League Baseball program, one that’s increasingly common in professional sports: using facial recognition on fans.
Facial recognition companies and their customers argue that these systems save time, and therefore money, by shortening lines at stadium entrances. However, skeptics argue that the surveillance tools are never totally secure, make it easier for police to get information about fans, and fuel “mission creep” where surveillance technology becomes more common or even required.
The MLB’s facial recognition program, dubbed Go-Ahead Entry, lets participating fans go on a separate security line, usually shorter than the other queues. Fans download the MLB Ballpark app, submit a selfie, and have their face matched at an in-person camera kiosk at a stadium’s entrance.
Six MLB teams are participating in Go-Ahead Entry, including the Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros, Kansas City Royals, San Francisco Giants, and Washington Nationals.
Some MLB teams, including the Mets, have their own facial recognition programs for express entry. The Mets have been using the facial recognition company Wicket for its Mets Entry Express program since 2021. The Cleveland Guardians, similarly, have been using technology from the company Clear at its ballpark, Progressive Field, since 2019.
Jeff Boehm, Wicket's chief operating officer, tells WIRED in an email that the company believes in “the responsible use of biometric technology to improve the event experience,” which includes taking “data security and privacy very seriously.”
Boehm adds: “As with many new technologies, there is misinformation out there about how the technology is being used. Contrary to some of these claims, Wicket's use is always 100% opt-in (and users can opt-out at any time) and we are not scanning people's faces without their consent. The data is not shared or sold to any third parties.”
Neither the Mets nor MLB immediately responded to WIRED’s requests for comment.
The National Football League has also started using Wicket facial recognition for express entry. NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said in an X post that the league-wide program, at least currently, is only available to "team/game-day personnel, vendors, and media”—not fans. The Cleveland Browns and Tennessee Titans, however, do have facial recognition entry systems that fans can use. (The news of the NFL’s expanded use of face recognition still caused confusion on Facebook and X, where some people thought facial recognition would be required at the stadiums for all 32 NFL teams.)
At Citi Field on Wednesday, the Mets Entry Express Line was used scarcely, perhaps five people every five minutes or so. There was never a line. The main security lines, though longer in comparison, took only about five minutes.
The protesters at Citi Field represented some of the 11 organizations that consigned an open letter arguing against the use of facial recognition systems at stadiums, including Fight for the Future, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and Amnesty International. The letter argues that “not only does facial recognition pose unprecedented threats to people’s privacy and safety, it’s also completely unnecessary.” The activists outside Citi Field on Wednesday passed out flyers to passersby with information about Go-Ahead Entry, declaring in all caps, “WE CALL FOUL ON FACIAL RECOGNITION AT SPORTING EVENTS.” This wasn’t their first protest on the issue; organizers with Fight for the Future also staged a protest last year at Citizens Bank Park, home of the Phillies, to agitate against its introduction of facial recognition.
Albert Fox Cahn, executive director of the New York-based advocacy group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (Stop), which consigned the letter, helped organize Wednesday’s protest. He tells WIRED that a primary concern with systems like Go-Ahead Entry is its potential to be used by law enforcement, largely out of the public eye.
“The sad truth is that all of these private-sector facial recognition systems are just one phone call or court order away from being turned into a policing tool,” Cahn says. He adds that there are ways to speed up lines that don’t involve facial recognition, such as tickets that use RFID or Bluetooth to “tap” for entry.
Facial recognition has also been used at venues to ban people who may be considered business adversaries. Radio City Music Hall, owned by MSG Entertainment, used facial recognition to bar a lawyer from attending the Christmas Spectacular with her daughter in 2022 because her law firm was engaged in litigation with MSG Entertainment. Other lawyers banned from MSG Entertainment properties, including Madison Square Garden, sued the company over its use of facial recognition, but the case was ultimately dismissed in May.
David Siffert, the legal director at Stop, who attended Wednesday’s protest, tells WIRED that many of the people outside Citi Field were receptive to their message. “Most people had no idea this was going on,” Siffert says. No one was confrontational, he says, or openly expressing disagreement. Their worst situation was a case of confusion.
“A couple people were annoyed because they thought we were advertising for the system,” Siffert adds. “And when we said we were trying to get the system banned, they got really excited and picked a flyer.”
Updated August 21, 2024, 4:05 pm EDT, to correct name of the Cleveland baseball team and its home ballpark.
Updated August 21, 2024, 4:40 pm EDT, to add comment from Wicket.
