Minnesota’s Target Field deploys fan cameras with facial recognition
Major League Baseball’s Minnesota Twins have partnered with Fancam to capture high-resolution images of fans throughout Target Field, and apply facial recognition to gather data on fan behaviour, local NBC affiliate Kare 11 reports.
Demographic data is collected for teams to allow them to provide to potential sponsors, and facial recognition can be used for targeted advertising. Images can also be branded by sponsors.
Fancam has partnered with professional teams in 10 stadiums for permanent installations, according to Kare 11, and there are dozens of teams using similar technology in all four North American big league sports leagues, CNBC reports.
Michael Proman, Managing Director of Fancam, acknowledged that privacy is currently a particularly sensitive issue in an interview with CNBC. “We anonymize all our data,” he said. “What’s most important is being able to identify macro-level trends, not to profile fans.”
The company also provides an option for fans to be removed from online images with photoshop.
CLEAR recently expanded its biometrics-based entry system to three new MLB stadiums.
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