A mother planning to attend a performance at New York City’s Radio Music Hall was denied entry after facial recognition technology detected her in the lobby.
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Kelly Conlon was with her daughter’s Girl Scout troop when she was stopped by security shortly after entering the “Christmas Spectacular” show the weekend after Thanksgiving. Conlon was informed by the security guard that she was denied entry due to her employer’s involvement in a lawsuit in which a client sued a restaurant venue owned by Madison Square Garden. For years, the New Jersey law firm Davis, Saperstein, and Solomon has been involved in the personal injury lawsuit, and MSG operates Radio City Music Hall and produces the Rockettes show.
Conlon stated that she is not actively working any MSG cases and had to wait for her daughter outside the venue. “They knew my name before I told them. They knew the firm I was associated with before I told them. “And they told me I couldn’t be there,” she explained.
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According to Yahoo! News, Radio City Music Hall uses different security measures to ensure that attendees are secure during performances and uses a Biometric Identifier Information as one of the measures. Conlon said she just wanted to take her daughter to the show and was embarassed by the entire experience.
“I was just a mom taking my daughter to see a Christmas show. I did wait outside … It was embarrassing, it was mortifying.”
Madison Square Garden also confirmed in a statement that they prohobited all employees from the firm due to the ongoing lawsuit.
“MSG instituted a straightforward policy that precludes attorneys pursuing active litigation against the Company from attending events at our venues until that litigation has been resolved. While we understand this policy is disappointing to some, we cannot ignore the fact that litigation creates an inherently adverse environment. All impacted attorneys were notified of the policy, including Davis, Saperstein and Salomon, which was notified twice.”
One of the firm’s partners, Sam Davis, said the company’s move is used to punish his colleagues for filing the lawsuit and plans to challenge their liquor license.
“The liquor license that MSG got requires them to admit members of the public, unless there are people who would be disruptive who constitute a security threat.Taking a mother, separating a mother from her daughter and Girl Scouts she was watching over — and to do it under the pretext of protecting any disclosure of litigation information — is absolutely absurd. The fact they’re using facial recognition to do this is frightening. It’s un-American to do this.”