Ticketmaster Jumps Into Facial Recognition Game
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
