During Pride Month, SF Gazetteer found Castro bars logging IDs and scanning faces at the door like the TSA.
The Castro became a refuge because queer people needed one place they wouldn't be photographed, named, and listed. Now its bars run ID scanning and facial recognition: your face matched to your license, your name, address, gender, and behavior logged. Flagged once, your file is shared across a connected network and can travel nationwide.
But is surveillance really safety?
At Madison Square Garden,
facial recognition tracked a trans woman for two years,
logging her bathroom breaks minute by minute. The
same system
targets anyone the owner dislikes: lawyers suing him, critics of the owner,
Gaza protesters, and
anti-facial recognition activists.
And the data isn't safe: in June, hackers
stole and published 45GB of MSG records,
facial recognition logs included.
Is your local bar or nightclub tracking you too?
Club 1984 needs your help to map every venue using this invasive technology. Know a bar or club that scans faces or IDs at the door? Submit it and we'll add it to the map.