Do these people not think how face scans of a historically marginalized group could be used by bad actors? Especially when project 2025 explicitly targets LGBTQ+ people and the rise of Christian nationalism. You don’t have to dig far in the right wing discourse to find calls for direct persecution of LGBTQ+ people. This is just dense and naive.

he was unaware Mix could share patron data with neighboring businesses but did not see a problem with it. “I think it’s cute that they share it amongst other bars,” he wrote. “It’s like a little cybersecurity community.”

Non tech people don't understand, gay bar owners are not civil rights advocates who are attuned to digital privacy. It's ignorance and I hope to god they get a shitton of media attention that teaches them this is a bad idea, and then we can start a movement on it.

Because they are after all the LGBT, nobody is safe, and the companies running these systems are building the profiles that will be used when they move on to the next step of christian nationalist agression.

In the UK, pubs have a system to share data on local troublemakers. I know a lot of people in the business (a family member is a pub manager) and it's entirely used to keep people out who have committed acts of aggression. The info shared is "X pub has banned Y person for Z reason." Other pubs can do the same if they choose. That way, if one pub owner is known to be overly ban-happy, the others aren't obliged to go along with it. You quickly learn which owners have sense and which don't. And the bans are almost always time-limited.

And yeah, pubs in the UK generally have CCTV. The retention period is short, the data is held by the pub, not shared with the police unless the police request it, and it's one of the only ways an assault in a pub will be prosecuted. If someone kicks off on you, that footage can be the difference between you (or them) being charged or not.

So a system like that can be run responsibly, protect patrons, and not be a surveillance hell. Whether that's what's happening in the 'Stro is another question. I'd say that anything beyond face, name and reason for being banned constitutes excessive data collection. There's no reason to know the person's address. The other ways to maintain privacy protection are having a short data retention policy and not sharing the data wholesale with the police or other authorities. If the US had something like the GDPR, that'd help.

Peter Thiel sponsorship?

I'm tired. I read "Costco gay bars" at first and thought $1.50 hot dogs at a gay bar would be a helluva good business idea.

Now I'm thinking of some nice man wearing a party shirt with the Kirkland logo all over it.

Maybe it's just any gay bar that caters to middle age and older. After the days of youthful, wild parties give way to tamer, fiscally responsible nights. Gotta get to bed early enough to wake up for a run to the real Costco before it gets too busy. The kids need a palette of La Croix.

Most of the clubs in my city have used this type of system for over 15 years. It's billed as a way to keep known gang members and people who have assaulted others from the establishments that use the system.

Definitely has a different connotation of surveillance now than when I was out partying at places with it.

Les Natali

Castro bars? Must be for Fidelity.

Are there non-gay bars on Castro st? Never been to SF but all I know is that’s like the most iconic/historic gay district

They should only scan trouble makers after they make trouble. Any face scans on entry should be checking against the trouble maker database then not save anything unless there is a hit. They should not default to saving everyones data.