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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact: Email:,press@fightforthefuture.org

Statement: NY AG on facial recognition at The Garden

NEW YORK

New York Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter today to Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. about the company's vindictive use of facial recognition to ban people from its venues (which you can check out here).

Caitlin Seeley George, Campaigns and Managing Director (she/her) at Fight for the Future, released the following statement in response:

"The civil rights impacts of Madison Square Garden using facial recognition are the crux of the threat of this technology. Facial recognition is an inherently dangerous affront to peoples' rights. Attorney General James gives examples of how facial recognition could have a chilling effect on people filing sexual harassment or employment discrimination complaints. And despite the current attention on how this policy is impacting lawyers, the truth is the the impact will always be disproportionately greater for marginalized communities. James Dolan and Madison Square Garden Entertainment are adding to the long history of people in power using surveillance to silence opposition. We need lawmakers to defend peoples' rights and put an end to facial recognition in public places immediately."

Fight for the Future is a group of artists, engineers, activists, and technologists who have been behind the largest online protests in human history, channeling Internet outrage into political power to win public interest victories previously thought to be impossible. We fight for a future where technology liberates -- not oppresses -- us.

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