New York Knicks owner sued following biometric data breach

The facial recognition-powered network of surveillance cameras that blankets Madison Square Garden has suffered a massive breach that includes biometric data, leading to a civil lawsuit against the company, owner of the NBA’s New York Knicks and the NHL’s New York Rangers.

Hacker group ShinyHunters claims to have stolen 45 GB of data from 26 million visits to MSG venues, TheNextWeb reports.

The group held the data for cyber-ransom, and published the data online after MSG did not pay by the June 15 deadline. Plaintiffs filed federal class action Avalo v MSG Entertainment the next day. The suit seeks at least $5 million in initial damages.

The data includes biometric tracking logs, in addition to background check information, internet threat assessment data, according to reports. It also allegedly includes customer emails from people who had expressed concern about MSG’s use of facial recognition.

An individual who attended a concert at MSG in September, 2025, Carlos Avalo, alleges the company committed corporate negligence when it failed to secure the servers storing sensitive data. The company had been warned of the risk by privacy experts and had already suffered a breach, he says.

The breach is the second suffered by MSG in less than a year, after more than 131,000 records including names, addresses and Social Security Numbers were stolen from its network. The records mostly belonged to MSG employees and contractors.

The lawsuit is not the first for Madison Square Garden Entertainment either. A lawsuit alleging the company had illegally profited from the use of people’s biometrics was dismissed in May, 2025, because plaintiffs did not specify a transaction profitable to MSG involving the data.

A Wired article from April describes a system of pervasive digital corporate surveillance across all MSG properties, with employee emails and fan’s biometrics all collected for the benefit of the company and its owner.

The controversial practices have contributed to a situation in which some members of New York City Council are attempting to reign in unfettered corporate surveillance, with one bill currently before committee which could ban MSG’s use of facial recognition.

Article Topics

biometric data  |  biometric identifiers  |  biometrics  |  data protection  |  facial recognition  |  New York City