A lawyer employed by a firm involved in a personal injury claim against the operator of Radio City Music Hall said she was barred from attending the Rockettes Christmas show at the famous Manhattan venue after being picked up by facial recognition technology at the entrance.
Kelly Conlon told NBC New York she and her daughter came to the city from New Jersey last month as part of a Girl Scout field trip to see the show – but she was prevented from entering.
Conlon said: “It was pretty simultaneous, I think, to me, going through the metal detector, that I heard over an intercom or loudspeaker, I heard them say, ‘Woman with long dark hair and a grey scarf.’”
Conlon said she was asked her name and to produce identification.
“I believe they said that ‘Our recognition picked you up,’” she said. “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 was not allowed to be there.”
Conlon is an attorney with Davis, Saperstein and Salomon, a law firm involved in a personal injury claim against MSG Entertainment, which operates Radio City Music Hall.
A sign at the venue says facial recognition is used as a security measure. Conlon said she posed no threat and was not involved in the personal injury case.
In a statement, MSG said it had “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 … all impacted attorneys were notified of the policy, including Davis, Saperstein and Salomon, which was notified twice.”
MSG also said its priority was safety and it was confident it was “in compliance with all applicable laws”.
It added: “In this particular situation, only the one attorney who chose to attend was denied entry, and the rest of of her group – including the Girl Scouts – were all able to attend and enjoy the show.”
Conlon told NBC: “I was just a mom taking my daughter to see a Christmas show. I did wait outside … It was embarrassing, it was mortifying.”
Sam Davis, a partner at Davis, Saperstein and Salomon, said: “This whole scheme is a pretext for doing collective punishment on adversaries who would dare sue MSG in their multibillion-dollar network.
“… 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 … 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.”