This weekend’s Download Festival will be subjected to strategic facial recognition technology by Leicestershire Police, making those 100,000-plus attendees the first music fans to ever be monitored to this extent at a UK music festival, according to UK police news and information website Police Oracle.
Globally, it’s not the first time festival attendees have been heavily surveilled at a music festival, usually without their prior knowledge. After the Boston Marathon bombing of April 2013, the subsequent Boston Calling festival was subject to heavy but discreet forms of facial recognition surveillance. But you can partly excuse Boston police forces for such invasive policing so soon after a terror attack. It’s something you can’t really say for Leicestershire police this weekend at Donington Park.
