Taylor Swift: Facial recognition ‘used to ID stalkers’ at show
Written by News on 13/12/2018
Facial recognition software has apparently been used to identify stalkers at a Taylor Swift show.
Fans watching rehearsal clips at a kiosk at the singer’s Rose Bowl show in LA earlier this year were snapped on a hidden camera, according to a report in Rolling Stone.
Mike Downing, chief security officer of Oak View Group, an advisory board for concert venues, told the publication the images were transferred to a “command post” in Nashville, where they were then cross-referenced with a database of hundreds of the pop star’s known stalkers.
Mr Downing reportedly attended the gig to witness a demo of the system as a guest of the company that manufacturers the kiosks.
“Everybody who went by would stop and stare at it, and the software would start working,” he said.
Rolling Stone said Swift’s representatives had not responded to requests for comment.
In April, one of the star’s stalkers was found sleeping by police at her home in New York after reports of a break-in.
Just a few days before, another man was arrested outside her home in Beverly Hills wearing a mask and rubber gloves.
He also had a knife, a rope and ammunition on him, police said.
Facial recognition technology is becoming more prominent around the world.
In June, a legal challenge to prevent the Met Police from using facial recognition cameras was launched by civil liberties group Big Brother Watch.
A month earlier, South Wales Police had defended its use of the software at the UEFA Champions League Final in Cardiff in 2017, after it emerged it had made thousands of mistakes.
(c) Sky News 2018: Taylor Swift: Facial recognition ‘used to ID stalkers’ at show
