Wicket signs multi-year deal to provide biometrics at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta

Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the NFL’s Atlanta Falcons and the Atlanta United football club, is the latest major sports venue to welcome biometric access control provider Wicket through its gates on a long-term basis. A release says stadium owner AMB Sports and Entertainment (AMBSE) has agreed on a multi-year deal with Wicket to provide facial authentication to the stadium as an official technology partner.

Wicket has been working as Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s facial ticketing provider since a 2022 pilot. The firm powers the venue’s Delta Fly Through Lanes for express biometric entry, and has expanded over time to offer more frictionless fan experiences, including face payments at markets on the stadium’s 100 and 200 levels.

“Wicket has been an integral part of keeping Mercedes-Benz Stadium a leader in fan experience,” says Chief Commercial Officer, AMBSE, Nana-Yaw Asamoah. “One of our core values is to innovate continuously and Wicket has allowed us to implement new and easy options for fans who want a seamless experience. We are excited to bring them on as a partner and look forward to continuing to evolve our fan experience to the next level safely and securely.”

A post on Wicket’s LinkedIn page says that “after two incredible years of expanding our facial authentication footprint and enhancing the gameday experience for fans, we’re taking our collaboration to the next level.”

Wicket COO clarifies differences between ticket, credentialing programs

A report from KARE 11 in Minneapolis runs through some of the benefits of Wicket’s facial authentication system. The piece quotes Eric Ebner, chief technological officer at 360 Security Services, who says the change makes sense given the size of NFL gameday crowds.

“You look at other alternatives, a key card, a PIN code, those have a logistic burden,” Ebner says. “Key cards are notoriously able to be copied with, you know, things you can purchase off the internet. Now you’ve got those press credentials. It’s much harder to copy their face and to spoof the systems that provide facial recognition.”

The piece also includes comments from Wicket COO Jeff Boehm, who clarifies that Wicket’s system in Minnesota – unlike the one in Atlanta – is strictly for credentialing approved personnel, and not even available to fans unless they opt-in.

“There is a misconception out there that says we’re scanning everybody within the stadium,” Boehm says. “We are not doing that. It is only at points of entry or at points of purchase for fans who choose to opt into this program.” Boehm continued. “And again, that’s not happening in Minnesota at all, because the Vikings right now are only using it for the NFL credentialing program.”

‘It’s a lot for us’: LV police hold firm on nixing biometric credential policy

The Wicket credentialing system for access control is rolling out across the league’s 30 stadiums. It has caused a mild stir in the mainstream media, largely thanks to Steve Grammas, the ever-vigilant head of the Las Vegas Police Protection Association. Grammas has been the voice of police protest, as the force refuses to comply with the NFL’s facial authentication policy when providing security at Raiders games, citing what they see as a compromise of their biometric privacy.

Even NPR has picked up on Grammas’ grievances. In a brief interview with NPR’s Martin Kaste, Grammas says the Las Vegas Police “have absolutely no assignments that we work where we turn over any biometric data or photos of our officers.” He also repeats his claim regarding the “vendors or friends of the NFL” named in the waiver they are being asked to sign. “We don’t know who those people are. We don’t know what they’re going to do with it, and we don’t know why they need to have it.”

Although those answers are readily available, there is still the fundamental matter of irreplaceability. NPR also quotes Jake Laperruque of the Center for Democracy and Technology. “You know, you can always change your password,” he says. “You can change ID numbers. You can’t change your face.”

Nonetheless, one can almost hear the exhausted sigh when Wicket’s Jeff Boehm explains that any data collected for its biometric programs is stored securely. “It’s not sold or given to any third parties for marketing uses or for data analytics or aggregation purposes for anything else,” Boehm said. “It is only kept for the purposes of, again, expediting entry into the stadium or speeding up your concession purchases.”

Article Topics

biometric ticketing  |  biometrics  |  data privacy  |  face biometrics  |  facial authentication  |  NFL  |  Wicket