NFL to roll out facial authentication software league-wide

The National Football League is the latest organization to turn to facial authentication to bolster event security, according to an announcement this week.

All 32 NFL stadiums will start using the technology this season, after the league signed a contract with a company that uses facial scans to verify the identity of people entering event venues and other secure spaces.

The facial authentication platform, which counts the Cleveland Browns’ owners as investors, will be used to “streamline and secure” entry for thousands of credentialed media, officials, staff and guests so they can easily access restricted areas such as press boxes and locker rooms, Jeff Boehm, the chief operating officer of Wicket, said in a LinkedIn post Monday.

“Credential holders simply take a selfie before they come, and then Wicket verifies their identity and checks their credentials with Accredit (a credentialing platform) as they walk through security checkpoints,” Boehm added.

Wicket technology was deployed in a handful of NFL stadiums last year as part of a pilot program. Other stadiums will start rolling it out beginning on Aug. 8, when the pre-season kicks off.

Some teams also have extended their use of the technology to scan the faces of ticket holders. The Cleveland Browns, Atlanta Falcons and New York Mets all have used the company’s facial authentication software to authenticate fans with tickets, according to Stadium Tech Report.

“Fans come look at the tablet and, instantly, the tablet recognizes the fan,” Brandon Covert, the vice president of information technology for the Cleveland Browns, said in a testimonial appearing on Wicket’s website.  “It’s almost a half-second stop. It’s not even a stop — more of a pause.”

“It has greatly reduced the amount of time and friction that comes with entering the stadium,” Covert added. “It’s so much faster.”

The Browns also use Wicket to verify the ages of fans purchasing alcohol at concession stands, according to Wicket’s LinkedIn page.

The use of facial recognition or authentication technology, particularly when applied to thousands of people who are scanned in the course of doing their job or entering a sports stadium, has long concerned privacy advocates.

In addition to concerns about the technology being used to track people's locations, privacy advocates and academics say that facial recognition technology intensifies racial and gender discrimination because it is more frequently inaccurate when identifying people of color, women and nonbinary individuals.

Wicket’s website says its technology uses “facial biometrics algorithms” to authenticate individual faces in less than a second and with 99.7% accuracy even in poorly lit spaces. The company markets itself to large venues by promising that it speeds entry and decreases congestion.

League-wide adoption of Wicket technology is designed to prevent the use of fraudulent credentials and make stadiums more secure, according to NFL officials. 

“One of the biggest things is accountability,” Billy Langenstein, senior director of security services for the NFL, told Sports Business Journal, which first reported the news. 

“[The league and the teams] know every single person who is being credentialed to work an NFL game, who they are, and the access levels they should have to do their job,” he added. “And a big part of it is accountability for those individuals, embracing it, learning it and evaluating the safety and security of the program.” 

The NFL is not the only sports league deploying facial recognition technology.

Soccer stadiums worldwide are rapidly adopting and deploying facial recognition technology to surveil fans, according to a Privacy International (PI) report published in May.

Twenty-five of the top 100 soccer stadiums in the world use the technology to bolster video surveillance, PI’s report said. The nonprofit sent its findings to the United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, which will issue a related report to the body’s General Assembly in October.