Bars Are Secretly Scanning Your Face And Tracking You

Most people hand their ID to a bouncer without thinking twice. But what if your local bar was monitoring way more than your age?

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 Cydney Hayes is a tech and business reporter at the Gazetteer SF.and she joins me for this week's Free Speech Friday to discuss her investigation into Patronscan, a creepy biometric surveillance system being integrated into bars and restaurants across the country. 

We examine how these systems collect personal information, photograph and surveil patrons as they move from bar to bar, build databases, and raise serious questions about privacy, biometric tracking, facial recognition, and data collection.

We discuss:

• How PatronScan works

• Why bars are adopting these systems

• What information is collected

• Privacy concerns surrounding biometric data

• Facial recognition and surveillance technology

• How customer databases are created

• The legal controversies surrounding PatronScan

• Why surveillance is expanding into everyday spaces

• What this means for the future of privacy

As surveillance technology spreads from airports and retail stores into restaurants, bars, and nightlife, it's becoming increasingly important to understand how these systems operate and what tradeoffs they create.