Facial recognition programs are coming to a club near you. Is there anything to worry about?

By Tony Attwood

As you may have heard there are plans from football clubs to introduce facial recognition technology at the turnstiles.   The aim of course is to prove to the club that the person entering the ground is the person who is entitled to use the digital ticket.   Which is to say it is a way of stopping the illicit selling-on of tickets by touts.

Which I think most of us would approve of.  Tickets should go to real fans at the price the club charges, not at some hyped-up cost with non-supporters selling on their tickets to make a profit.

So the aim seems good but there is a problem.   We are always told these digital systems are secure and even foolproof, but they are generally not.   Because digital technology can always be overcome by crooks so that it actually provides information, and often false information.   However, the myth is created that the systems are foolproof in order to extend their reach.

There is also the question arising of the proportionality of the demands of the clubs – just how much selling on is there – and is it enough really to require such interventions and such risks?

Indeed a number of organisations from different clubs are now opposing the introduction of the new measures and asking the FSA to oppose them until “transparent and meaningful dialogue has taken place at a national level with fans, leagues, the FA, civil rights groups and the Information Commissioner’s Office on its legality and privacy concerns.”

For what many fans see is that each of these “security” moves are increasingly aggressive and restrictive actions by the club, making life ever more difficult, most particularly for season ticket holders

If we go back a while I can remember a number of friends who shared a season ticket, both because of the price and because none could commit to coming to every game.  That problem has got worse and worse with matches being switched around across days of the week.   And the question then arose – what was wrong if my pal and I agreed that we would come to private arrangements as to which of us would go to which match, depending on family commitments, work commitments, the occasional illness, holidays etc etc.  Just because our lives didn’t fit with Arsenal’s ever moving home games, should we be punished?

But no, the clubs don’t want that, and the number of games that can be sold on is reduced year on year with all selling-on being done via the club.  Even though the ticket was still paid for, and still used by an Arsenal supporter.

But now with the new systems that are being proposed, the ability of people to share a ticket between friends is restricted even further.  And why?  Apparently so that the club always knows exactly who it is that is in their stadium.    The next thing we will find is that they will always want to know who is walking on “their” concourse outside while demanding Transport for London provide personal details of everyone using Arsenal underground station.

But the biggest problem of all is that all data that is kept and stored, reduces the ability of all of us to have a private life, and it is is invariably stolen by crooks.   Of course, if there is someone in the ground who starts a fight I want him/her recognised and barred from the ground.   But do I want a gang of crooks to know which nights of the week my house is going to be empty?  No, I really don’t.

I also note that this approach is facial recognition is now widespread in Brazil and Argentina, hardly the centres of democracy, and it doesn’t seem to have helped much.   In fact in Brazil all stadia with over 20,000  capacity must have the system by law so that the system is used to pick up people who currently have arrest warrants against them from the police.  Maybe that’s a good idea, but just how much data do you want?

And what about what happened to me when I was wrongly accused of buying and selling away tickets?  I said the accusation was false and asked to see the evidence.  The club refused to provide evidence, and took six months before it allowed me to appeal – which I did and got my ticket back.   If the club is that incapable or running the systems it has at present, do we want them to have even more data at their disposal?

So what will they do to the writer of a blog that is very critical of the club?   Are people who read that and comment on such a blog then going to be tagged on their season ticket?    Supposing I were to run a campaign protesting about prices, would that be tagged on my ticket, so that suddenly I find myself blocked?   

And this is even before we worry about having the data of children and adolescent supporters stored on Arsenal’s secret database and the suggestion is made that unwittingly Arsenal have got a person who you really don’t want working with children, on their books.  With such worries reassurances that everything will be ok, are not enough.  Data will leak and be misused.  That is the one thing of which we can always be certain.