Madison Square Garden compiled a list of activists who have publicly criticized the venue’s use of facial recognition technology, putting their tweets and comments into a document that was then accessible to other people inside the company, 404 Media has found.

The news shows that MSG, operated by Jim Dolan who has garnered a reputation for being pernicious against his perceived enemies, is not only deploying controversial facial recognition technology but keeping track of specific people who take issue with it. The document was included in a 45GB cache of data hackers stole from MSG and posted online this month, which 404 Media then downloaded and reviewed.

“The wake of a data breach would be a good time for Madison Square Garden to stop subjecting its patrons to biometric surveillance,” Adam Schwartz, privacy litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and one of the people included in the document, told 404 Media.

The document, titled “Facial Recognition Activists.docx” and included in a folder named “Activists,” lists three people who have criticized MSG’s use of facial recognition: Evan Greer, director of digital rights group Fight for the Future; Albert Fox Cahn, founder and executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP); and the EFF’s Schwartz. All three of the activists have been quoted in major media articles discussing MSG’s facial recognition technology, including in NPR and The New York Times.

In each section, the document includes background information on the activist, their contact information if available, their social media handles and follower count, then quotes each have previously said about MSG’s facial recognition program. The document also includes screenshots of several of Greer’s relevant tweets. One says, “Hey New Yorkers, who are the coolest people on the NYC city council who might wanna introduce a facial recognition ban like the one in Portland, OR that would stop Madison Square Garden from using biometric surveillance?” 

At the time of the screenshot, Greer had posted the tweet 16 hours prior. The document is dated as December 23, 2022, 1pm. It was available inside an MSG SharePoint instance, suggesting it was available to people other than the author.

“The fact that MSG is creating dossiers on activists who say things they don't like shows exactly why private companies should not be allowed to use dangerous surveillance technologies like facial recognition,” Greer told 404 Media in an email. “Large companies can and will use surveillance tech to punish critics, exploit workers, and consolidate power, with no regard for the basic rights they trample in the process.”

In the document, MSG misgenders Greer. “Given their recent treatment of a trans woman trying to use the bathroom in their venue, I'm also not surprised they misgendered me,” Greer added, pointing to a case reported in a recent in-depth report from WIRED on MSG’s surveillance practices.

“For years, we promised we'd ‘watch the watchers,’ but now it's clear they've been watching us,”Cahn said in a statement. “It's creepy when the largest corporations in the country amass the surveillance power that only governments once had, but it's outright Orwellian when those tools target New Yorkers simply for opposing their corporate surveillance state.”

It is not clear who wrote the document. MSG did not respond to a request for comment.

MSG has deployed facial recognition technology since 2018 to identify people entering the venue. MSG’s facial recognition systems have been used to block entry to the stadium for all sorts of people. The list includes lawyers who work at law firms in litigation with MSG, even if they are not part of the litigation themselves; and potentially a man who once made a shirt that criticized Dolan.

In the recent WIRED investigation, the outlet reported security chief John Eversole visited the websites of more than 90 firms and fed photos of 1,200 lawyers into MSG’s facial recognition software.

As Schwartz said in earlier media coverage about the technology: “It raises the question of what’s going to come next. Will companies use facial recognition to keep out all the people who have picketed the business or criticized them online with a negative Yelp review?”

Update: this piece has been updated with comment from Albert Fox Cahn.