Boots Riley Among 100 Artists Boycotting Facial Recognition Technology At Live Concerts

Sorry to Bother You director and The Coup member Boots Riley is joining over 100 artists who are boycotting the use of facial recognition technology at live entertainment venues. On Thursday (June 22), Rolling Stone reported that Riley, born Raymond Lawrence Riley, has been included alongside Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha, Philadelphia rock band Speedy Ortiz and more, with concerns that the technology “infringes on privacy and increases discrimination.”

Organized by digital rights advocacy group Fight for the Future, the boycott calls for face-scanning technology to be banned at all live concert venues. Some small independent spots nationwide have followed suit, like Brooklyn’s House of Yes, L.A.’s Lyric Hyperion and D.C.’s Black Cat, all who have pledged not to use facial-scanning tech at shows.

“Surveillance tech companies are pitching biometric data tools as ‘innovative’ and helpful for increasing efficiency and security. Not only is this false, it’s morally corrupt,” Leila Nashashibi, campaigner at Fight for the Future, said in a statement. “For starters, this technology is so inaccurate that it actually creates more harm and problems than it solves, through misidentification and other technical faultiness. Even scarier, though, is a world in which all facial recognition technology works 100% perfectly – in other words, a world in which privacy is nonexistent, where we’re identified, watched, and surveilled everywhere we go.”

Apart from his activism, Riley will next be premiering his new Prime Video show I’m A Virgo on Friday (June 23). The absurdist comedy follows 13-foot-tall teenager Cootie (Jharrel Jerome), who navigates his bizarre life and new friendships in modern-day Oakland.