Facial recognition coming to Bank of America Stadium as ticket alternative
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Some Carolina Panthers fans will soon be able to ditch their ticket.
Verizon Business and the Carolina Panthers unveiled Express Entry at Bank of America Stadium on Thursday, meaning their face is all that’s needed to enter the gate.
It’s a facial recognition scanner with access points at the North Silver Club and South Silver Club entrances.
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“Our goal, for anyone’s experience from a fan’s experience perspective, is to get through to their seats to watch and experience the event,” said Carolina Wight, Tepper Sports & Entertainment’s senior vice president and chief venues officer. “So, anything that we are doing is about improving access to the facility, so this is another opportunity for us to do that.”
With Express Entry, no paper ticket or phone is necessary to enter the stadium. Before going in, those who choose to opt in will take a picture, and the facial authentication technology will link their picture to their Ticketmaster account.
Ticket holders can then “check-in” by using one of the designated facial-ticketing lanes. After the face is scanned, the ticket taker will confirm the number of people in the party before granting access to the stadium.
“I let the system recognize me. It sees me. It shows me my tickets. I select my ticket. I scan it,” said Michael Ruhnke, vice president of Global Enterprise for Verizon Business. “And it allows me access without ever having to touch a piece of a ticket or a phone or any piece of technology other than just the likeness of my face.”
With growing privacy concerns surrounding facial recognition, Verizon Business said their technology is built on a secure infrastructure that it also encrypted.
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“It is built to ensure that we are adhering to privacy standards,” Ruhnke explained. ‘Verizon as a whole pays close attention to even in our testing the technology to ensure privacy is held up.”
For Phase 1, club season ticket members are eligible beginning with the Panthers game on Dec. 17 against the Falcons. The goal is to expand to all season ticket holders.
“What’s important to us is that our fans feel comfortable, and we work at their place and so that is really why a phased approach is important for us to recognize that it means different things for different people,” Wright said.
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