Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Tech shortens lines
Fingerprints, iris scans also allow tracking fan habits
CLEAR technology expedites entry at stadiums.
Lazaro Torres, a die-hard Miami Heat fan, was scurrying to reach his seat before tip-off one night recently when he hit an all-toocommon roadblock: Two dozen fans stirring impatiently in the security-check line.
Not a problem. He slid into a special entrance line, laid two fingers on a print scanner and, with the Heat’s rapid blessing, cruised into the arena.
“It’s been great,” Torres, a 43-year-old season-ticket holder, said of the service, known as CLEAR, which offers queue-skipping privileges for six U.S. sports teams including New York’s Yankees and Mets.
Attending a game used to be a low-tech pleasure: Buy a ticket and grab a seat.
Now, with metal detectors and bag checks standard at almost all major sporting venues, companies have begun offering biometric and other tools to create the equivalent of express security lanes like those in airports.
Those fingerprints and iris scans also allow teams to track fans’ behavior and purchasing habits, helping them rake in more revenue and fatten profits while triggering at the same time the privacy concerns that dog this sort of technology in other parts of the economy.
CLEAR, owned by Alclear LLC, also provides similar security services at 16 airports, where passengers can get fast-tracked for $179 a year.
At stadiums, teams pay a licensing fee and fans nothing.
Other companies offer streamlining at stadiums and other venues to government-vetted members of PreCheck, the Transportation Security Administration’s service for airline travelers.
Walt Disney parks offer expedited fingerprint-based identity scanning to customers who’ve bought certain passes.
Security advocates and the Department of Homeland Security have called for stronger protection at large gatherings since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist strikes.
Attacks such as the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 that killed three people added urgency, said Lou Marciani, director of the National Center for Spectator Sports Safety and Security at the University of Southern Mississippi.
“Between training and processes and technology, we are trying our darnedest to harden arenas and marathons and high school sports,” Marciani said.
Safran’s MorphoTrust USA signs up travelers for the TSA’s PreCheck program, which entitles passengers to five years of streamlined airport screening after submitting to a background check, providing biometric data and paying $85.
Since last year, MorphoTrust has funneled PreCheck members into express security lanes at concerts under a contract with promoter Live Nation Entertainment, said Charles Carroll, senior vice president for identity services.
Short lines are less attractive to terrorists, who have detonated bombs in nonsecure areas such as the outer lobby of the Brussels airport on March 22.
And just as the TSA offers lighter security for PreCheck members — allowing them to leave liquids and laptops in bags, for example — MorphoTrust hopes by next year to offer sports fans similar perks.
“It will radically change how people enter sporting events,” Carroll said.
The increased monitoring raises broad issues about privacy in the digital age, according to Jennifer Lynch, a senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties group.
Fans seeking convenience may not understand the risks of having their whereabouts tracked or of the consequences if a company’s information is hacked or stolen, she said.
“I find this incredibly shocking,” Lynch said. “It appears to be the very beginning of a very large tracking program.”
So far, such concerns haven’t been reported by the companies and teams using the services.
All major U.S. leagues, including baseball, football, basketball and hockey, have stepped up security checks in recent years, according to team and league policies.
“We have found it to be a real challenge,” said Jason Pearl, senior vice president of business development for the San Francisco Giants. “We have only so many entrances to the ball park.”