
Taylor Swift tracked stalkers with facial recognition tech at her concert - bookofjoe
https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/12/18137984/taylor-swift-facial-recognition-tech-concert-attendees-stalkers
======
furgooswft13
And she's had to deal with plenty of them too. The two I remember recently
were some guy climbing on and trying to break into her NY apartment, and some
guy on social media threatening to kill her when she performed in Australia.
The story is often familiar, the stalker guys will profess their undying love
for Ms. Swift and lament that they'll never be with her so they must harm her
in some way.

And then there's the regular crazy Swiftie fangirls who obnoxiously battle
each other on Tumblr and concerts to get noticed by Taylor while despising all
the people who have gotten picked to meet her. There have been numerous
incidents at concerts of people jumping up on the stage and trying to grab
her. I remember a few moments during the Reputation tour where she appeared
very distracted between sets, snapping her head to the side as if she thought
someone was about to jump her. I don't blame her for being paranoid, fans can
be crazy.

I think also these big ticket venues are rightly more paranoid as of late,
especially since Manchester and the shooting in LA. I made this really cool (I
thought so at least) wearable LED matrix tee shirt (RGB Neopixels driven by a
Teensyduino and cellphone battery pack) that displayed various Taylor related
animations, but was only able to get it in 2 concerts out of uhm...several
that I went to (Hackers can be Swifties too ok). The rules seemed arbitrary
and highly dependent on what security guard you got when entering, which did
not instill me with much confidence (one guard said the LED's were fine but I
could not take the battery. Well ok then, even though the battery was just a
regular cellphone charger that they explicitly did allow. And several times
after I had been denied I go into the concert only to see other people with
light up LED signs on full display).

Anyway, it's one thing for a private venue to employ these measures for
security to voluntary participants who knew damn well they were surrounded by
guards and had to abide by certain rules, and an entire other sinister thing
for governments to arbitrarily collect this data on everyone to do god knows
what with backed by the power of the state.

Between you know, John Lennon and the recent sad story of Christina Grimmie,
I'm very glad Taylor Swift is taking security seriously.

~~~
endymi0n
These things can be serious. In another life I was co-managing the tour of a
semi-successful boy band (we couldn‘t afford any Taylor Swift sized security
measures, then again the concerts were usually less than 1000 people). The
breaches were egregious. One day, one of the guys came home into his hotel
room exhausted after a concert and there were three nude girls in his bed.
Another walked out from his shower into a similar situation and was more
shocked and angry than anything else. None of this could have happened without
the help of Hotel personnel. On top, all of these intruders were getting very
hostile when they weren‘t being „taken advantage of“ but sent out. Being
famous, even slightly so, isn‘t as nice as it seems from the outside.

~~~
loudmax
> Being famous, even slightly so, isn‘t as nice as it seems from the outside.

It's not that I don't believe you. I can rationally accept that what you've
said makes sense. However, being on the outside, it takes some mental effort
to make the fame you've described not seem extremely nice.

~~~
soundwave106
There's a level of fame, the more superstar type level, where simply walking
by yourself in public is much less feasible because of the tendency to get
mobbed or attract unwanted attention. This is probably the level where
problems like stalkers are much more serious. I'd guess that this is the level
where it isn't "as nice". You no longer can do things without considering
potentially crazy fans or overly uncomfortable levels of recognition.

A long time ago, I remember the difference being illustrated at a Dragoncon in
the early 2000s. Guests on the fame level of, say, Babylon 5 cast members,
could walk around the convention just fine. They could do standard things
like, say, go to the restaurant and have a meal without being heavily
interrupted. Walking around they'd maybe get some hellos and photo poses and
whatnot but it didn't seem terribly intrusive.

And then there was Alice Cooper, who walked around the main convention floor
one day and instantly got mobbed by a huge crowd.

My hunch is that Taylor Swift probably is at the fame level where she needs
security of some sort merely to walk around in public. That's a negative in my
mind.

~~~
icebraining
Babylon 5 is probably a bit too obscure, but you don't even need to be a
Taylor Swift to get that "treatment"; I'm guessing anyone playing a main
character of, say, Grey's Anatomy is probably getting constantly interrupted
in public (meals, gym, parks, everywhere can be fair game for shrieking fans
to badger you and demand you act like the character). At least that's my
experience living with someone who got such a part (although at the scale of a
small country, not worldwide like Grey's).

------
packetslave
Quoting a 2012 interview with Taylor: "I don’t have security to make myself
look cool, or like I have an entourage. I have security because there’s a file
of stalkers who want to take me home and chain me to a pipe in their
basement."

If you wonder how much damage a stalker / obsessed fan can do at a public
event like a concert, just ask Christina Grimmie (who was many, many orders of
magnitude less famous or visible than someone like Taylor)

~~~
EADGBE
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Grimmie#Death](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Grimmie#Death)

------
mosselman
"While you might not be scanned going to see the next Marvel film, the movie
ticket of the future might just be your face."

This sounds very dystopian to me.

~~~
ramblerman
scalping tickets takes on a whole new meaning

~~~
notacoward
Kind of OT and kind of gross, but that did make me LOL. Thanks!

------
mc32
"However, the legality of doing so is on the artist’s side: a concert is
technically a private event..."

I bet a lot more of these private events integrate more of this kind of
technology for both good reasons (prevent stalkers) and bad reasons (prevent
opposition) from attending an event. Let's say Hillary has a talk but she
doesn't want hecklers. Or Cheney, same thing. That would be unfortunate use of
this tech.

~~~
da_chicken
People have been circulating photographs of potential threats to their
security guards since photography became ubiquitous. This is just an
additional tool.

> Let's say Hillary has a talk but she doesn't want hecklers. Or Cheney, same
> thing. That would be unfortunate use of this tech.

Why? Your right to free speech is not a right to _prevent others from
exercising their right to free speech_ , and that's exactly what a heckler is
doing. Your rights end where others' begin.

The purpose of free speech is to not stifle the free exchange of ideas and
arguments, and "shut up," is not a particularly novel or valuable contribution
to any conversation. and therefore does not deserve the same level of
protection as an actual argument or idea.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
Come on, it’s not just a “tool.” It radically changes privacy because of the
scale. A human can only scan and accurately identify so many pictures manually
with their eyes. I don’t necessarily disagree with the use of technology, but
let’s be honest, it’s a dramatic shift.

~~~
da_chicken
It's only dramatic change if the purpose of the system is to identify as many
people as possible (i.e., data mining the crowd), rather than to scan for a
fixed set of known individuals (which is what guards already do). It's like
the difference between checking IDs for entry vs _scanning and saving_ IDs for
entry.

------
wodenokoto
Am I misunderstanding the word stalker? What harm do they do at a concert?

I get why you want to keep out known trouble makers and such from concerts,
and why you want to keep stalkers away from your private sphere, but I am not
quite sure how obsessively watching the performer at a concert is causing
other concert goes any trouble.

~~~
wastedhours
As someone further up the comments mentioned, take the case of Christina
Grimmie [0] as a pretty wrapped up example of what can happen.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Grimmie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Grimmie)

~~~
swebs
>On June 10, 2016, Grimmie was shot by 27-year-old Kevin James Loibl (March
10, 1989 – June 10, 2016) while she signed autographs following her
performance with Before You Exit at The Plaza Live in Orlando. Loibl was
tackled by Grimmie's brother, but the gunman broke free, backed against a
wall, and shot himself dead.[78][b] Grimmie was taken to Orlando Regional
Medical Center in critical condition with three gunshot wounds;[c] she was
pronounced dead just before 11 p.m. local time.[80] An autopsy revealed that
Grimmie was shot once in the head and twice in the chest.[81] Her death was
declared a homicide.

>The Orlando Police Department said Loibl had traveled by taxicab to Orlando
from his home in St. Petersburg, Florida,[80] bringing two handguns, two extra
magazines full of ammunition, and a hunting knife.[d] Orlando Police Chief
John Mina stated, "We believe he came here to commit this crime."[82] Loibl
did not have an arrest record in his home county and did not appear to know
Grimmie personally.[83] Police did not offer a motive,[e] but said Loibl had
shown an "unrealistic infatuation" with the singer and tried to make himself
more physically attractive through weight loss, hair and eye surgery. Loibl's
family said they were not aware of his plans to travel to Orlando nor that he
possessed any guns.[78]

~~~
lathiat
Even at a much smaller scale than Taylor Swift (though with relatively
reasonable internet fame), see Meg Turney

"On January 26, 2018, a fan armed with a handgun broke into Turney's and
Free's home, breaking a window to enter and firing one round as he did.[38]
Turney and Free hid in a closet and called police. When the man could not find
the couple, he left but was confronted by police outside. The suspect fired
one shot and police returned fire; when officers approached the suspect's
vehicle, they found him dead. Whether the suspect's death was from self-
inflicted shots or shots fired by police is under investigation. Turney and
Free were unharmed during the incident. It has been assessed the suspect had
developed an obsession with Turney, and he was attempting to cause harm to
Free, against whom he felt resentment.[39] Turney ceased updating her YouTube
channel for nearly half a year following the incident, citing concern for her
safety in sharing her life with an audience.[40]"

From:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Turney#Home_Invasion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meg_Turney#Home_Invasion)

Someone also fired Bullets through and broke a window of a fairly popular
streamer DrDisrespect while he was streaming.

------
sschueller
Isn't the line between "super" fan and stalker quite thin?

~~~
Itaxpica
It’s really not. I used to be an EMT; one of my most memorable calls was as
backup to a police call to a hotel where a famous singer was staying because a
known stalker was in the lobby. Talking to the guy, you could tell he was
trying to downplay the creep factor but he had definitely crossed a line and
he seemed to know it. One particular exchange:

Him: “I’ve sent her a few letters” The cop: “How many is a few?” Him: “A few,
not that many” The singer’s bodyguard: “two hundred in the last six months”

------
Apocryphon
Ah, sousveillance in action.

------
titzer
Fear. Fear! FEAR!! They are fucking terrified of us. We're terrified of each
other. We're terrified of darkness, of strangers, of foreigners, of
immigrants. We're terrified of the future and past and even the present too.
It's on the news all the time, on the TV all the time, on the internet all the
time. Governments, militaries, intelligence agencies, law enforcement
agencies, celebrities, sports teams, any kind of event you imagine...

Terror is the currency of today.

Fuck, what a mess we are in.

~~~
thiagocsf
John Lennon would like a word with you.

Oh wait, he doesn’t. Because some crazy fan shot him and he’s been dead for
decades.

This is nothing new.

~~~
titzer
I think you missed my point. Pretty sure that John Lennon did not live in fear
of being shot in the back his entire life. The fact this happened scared
everyone else so bad that they live _profoundly_ different lives full of fear.
My point has nothing to do with how rational or irrational that fear is. I'm
only pointing its existence, the elephant in the room is our _own fear_ , like
a huge Spectre over everything that nobody ever looks at or questions. Fear
drives society.

~~~
adventured
The US was dramatically more dangerous 40 years ago than it is today. The
murder rate was 100% higher in 1980 - approximately the peak murder rate in US
history - vs the expected 2018 full year figures (which based on numbers so
far, will show one of the largest single year reductions in murder ever
recorded in the US; Chicago's murders for example should be down about 15%
this year). The culture was a wild mess throughout the 1970s, far beyond
anything we see today. If John Lennon wasn't afraid of being shot at the time,
that says more about his personal attitude on life than it does about the
actual murder risks in 1980.

~~~
viraptor
The averages are not that great when talking about specific/special cases. I
can't find the details about the 60s, but currently in Chicago ~60% of
homicides are gang warfare related. Being a famous person living in a nice
area isolates you from that a lot. So whatever city it is, I'm sure
celebrities enjoy a much lower chance of street murder than an average person.

It's when they're announced and surrounded by huge crowds, that's a bigger
risk.

~~~
danielvf
In Baltimore: "According to the analysis, nearly 90 percent of the 344
[homicide] victims in 2015 had a prior criminal record. Of those, 80.2 percent
had a prior drug arrest; 60.8 had been arrested for a violent crime; and half
had a prior gun charge. The average victim had been arrested 13 times
before..."

[https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-
co...](https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/bs-md-ci-cops-killers-
victims-20160107-story.html)

\--

I agree that celebrities have a smaller chance of random murder, but fans
harming celebrities is definitely a quirk of human nature. Beyond the one
deaths that make wikipedia, there are plenty of crazies that get caught before
being able to act, or the celebrity survives the attack with injuries. X
percentage of humans are crazy, and once you have 113.8m instagram followers,
that's 1,138 instances of 1 in 100,000 crazy.

------
gammateam
> a concert is technically a private event

I think its technically funny they decided to make that distinction, because
like obviously? Although I do see people misinterpreting their rights often
times, I guess saying it this way helps steer the discussion

~~~
sharpneli
Interesting that they are private events in the US. It is not so everywhere so
it is good thay they mentioned it.

In Finland they are considered public events. The definition is that if you do
not need an invitation it is a public event, even if you pay for access.

~~~
gammateam
Yes but the tickets also couple as countracts usually written on the back and
in the purchasing process, which can override default legal treatment, in many
places

Youll have to check the user experience and supporting local legal precedent

~~~
gdfasfklshg4
Contracts can only stipulate things that are legal. If a term is illegal it is
considered void. Courts tend to look unfavourably at unfair terms in one-way
contracts which the other party had no opportunity to negotiate. I think that
it is unlikely that a contract on the back of a ticket can override default
legal treatment.

I would definitely hire an appropriate lawyer if I wanted to understand the
legality of something like this in a given jurisdiction!

~~~
gammateam
> Contracts can only stipulate things that are legal

Such as overriding default treatment

> Courts tend to look unfavouravly at..

Common practices can successfully shield liability and go unchallenged for a
hundred years.

A lot of incorporation strategy and contract law is based around deterrents
and cost prohibitiveness of testing them, with a bit of thought into how
actual litigation would wind up.

~~~
gdfasfklshg4
Good points. I would also assume that a major artist and the venues they
perform at would have hired some serious lawyers and have a fairly strong idea
that what they are doing is legally sound.

Really the only thing to do if you are curious is to find a good lawyer and
get some real advice.

