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| DATE | 2020-08-01 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Facial Recognition in Sports - No More Tickets
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/facial-recognitions-next-big-play-the-sports-stadium-11596290400?mod=hp_lead_pos9
Facial Recognition’s Next Big Play: the Sports Stadium
Parmy Olson
7-9 minutes
When sports fans return to watch their teams play live again, many of
them may not need a ticket.
Several pro sports teams, including the New York Mets and the Los
Angeles Football Club, are testing facial-recognition technology in
stadiums. The idea is to admit fans for entry by authenticating their
faces, to make the process as touchless as possible during the
coronavirus pandemic.
Big, live sporting events—including a soccer match in Italy blamed for
accelerating that country’s large outbreak—have been contagion points
for the virus’s spread. That is because of the proximity of fans and the
likelihood of close contact, such as shuffling down aisles or jostling
for a beer at the concession stand. All the shouting doesn’t help, either.
Any return to stadiums is expected to happen only after a
virus-instigated overhaul of the fan experience, not unlike efforts to
remake factories, offices, restaurants and airports. For now, most big
professional leagues are only considering games in nearly empty stadiums
or arenas.
Facilities managers at some of these venues, though, are looking at
using facial-recognition scanners to start bringing small numbers of
high-value fans such as VIP guests or season-ticket holders back for
games, said Shaun Moore, chief executive of facial-recognition supplier
Trueface.
Discussions with vendors such as his have been focused on “how to reduce
touch points and [avoid] people having to hand over credentials,” Mr.
Moore said. Even scanning ticket bar codes could pose a risk of
spreading the virus, he said.
Facial-recognition technology, now routinely used at many big airports,
also is at the point that it has proven to be reliable. Some, however,
say the technology raises privacy issues, and at least one European
regulator has scrutinized its use in sports stadiums.
Fans of Los Angeles FC, a Major League Soccer club with a 22,000-seat
stadium, will next year be able to use an app called Clear, made by
Alclear and used by some airline passengers to speed through security
checks by presenting their fingerprints or showing their faces.
“Our plan is to move everything to face,” says Christian Lau, chief
technology officer of LAFC and Banc of California Stadium.
LAFC fans will be able to take and download a selfie and link their
Clear accounts with their existing Ticketmaster profiles. At the stadium
turnstile, a camera will measure the fan’s temperature. A second camera
determines whether the spectator is wearing a mask. Fans would then pull
down their masks to let that same camera recognize their faces and admit
them based on their ticket purchase. If a face isn’t recognized, a red
frame will show around the face on the screen and the person will be
denied entry.
Mr. Lau said that the club started doing trials of Clear’s older
face-and-fingerprint kiosks just before the lockdown and that 600 fans
had used them to get in over the course of two games. Mr. Lau said less
than 1% of customers had to adjust or rescan their faces. Still,
considering California’s new virus surge, he isn’t expecting any fans
back until 2021.
Alclear and LAFC haven’t disclosed costs, but an access-control kiosk
like the one LAFC is buying typically costs several thousand dollars.
Buyers usually pay a recurring license fee for the software, too. James
Stickland, chief executive of British facial-recognition firm Veridium
IP Ltd., said such software could cost between $200,000 and $250,000 a
year for a stadium.
Mr. Lau described the investment as an efficiency play. The more cameras
it can eventually install, the quicker and easier it will be for fans to
buy things inside the stadium. “At some point in the not-too-distant
future, you can walk up and use your face to buy pizza,” Mr. Lau said.
Understanding Coronavirus
Major League Baseball’s Mets also are using Alclear’s facial-recognition
system to authenticate players as they enter the stadium and take their
temperatures. The team is considering rolling the system out in a much
larger way to admit fans, too, though “right now it’s just players and
staff,” a spokesman said.
The Netherlands’ Johan Cruijff Arena, home to one of Europe’s
most-successful soccer clubs, AFC Ajax, installed facial-recognition
cameras at its stadium entrance two years ago as part of a pilot for
ticketless fan entry. Hundreds had their faces scanned as part of the
project. Dutch data-protection regulators warned the stadium was
violating privacy rules, and the cameras were taken down six months
after they came online.
Now stadium managers are asking regulators if they can reinstall the
cameras and software. Around 10,000 fans will be allowed back into the
55,000-capacity stadium for a practice game with RKC Waalwijk on Aug. 8.
“Hopefully we use this coronavirus pandemic to change rules,” said Henk
van Raan, chief innovation officer at the arena. “The coronavirus is a
bigger enemy than [any threat to] privacy.”
A spokesman for the Dutch privacy agency declined to comment on the
arena but said facial recognition should only be deployed with a legal
basis and under strict circumstances.
SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
If you could go see a pro game live, would you? Join the conversation below.
Philip Jones, who owns the Annan Athletic, a professional soccer team in
Scotland, is installing a facial-recognition system at his 600-seat
stadium. The system isn’t for admitting ticketless fans, but to provide
information for the stadium’s own contact-tracing app. He says fans,
once they understand the reason for the cameras, won’t mind.
“It’s the same old story, it’s Big Brother,” Mr. Moore said. “But if you
sit and tell them, and they understand [how it works], that takes a lot
of the mystery away.”
A ramp-up in using biometric screening for Covid-19 presages the same
sort of seismic shift in the fan experience that followed the terrorist
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Stadiums bulked up security, adding metal
detectors and security checks that at the time were reserved for airport
security.
“These organizations can be slow movers, but once something takes hold,
it very quickly can become an industry standard,” said Thomas Alomes, a
director for Austin, Texas-based Sports Tech World Series, which does
research and consulting work for professional sports organizations.
—Ben Cohen contributed to this article.
Write to Parmy Olson at parmy.olson-at-wsj.com
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