Apparently, the Castro has a new rule for the robots: not tonight.
Badlands and Toad Hall, two prominent gay bars in San Francisco’s Castro District, have paused their use of Patronscan, an ID verification and facial scanning system, after LGBTQ+ advocates, musicians and digital rights groups pushed back against the technology’s privacy and discrimination risks.
The campaign was organized by Fight for the Future, which urged artists and patrons to boycott Castro venues using invasive surveillance technology. More than 300 artists nationwide joined the campaign, including Bay Area musicians Tune-Yards and Deerhoof. Reem Suleiman, a campaign director for the organization, said 342 artists had signed the pledge, with more than half joining during the previous two months.
And after all that pressure, two of the Castro’s best-known gay bars decided it was time to hit pause.
Badlands and Toad Hall finally hit pause
Shortly after Gazetteer SF reported on the campaign, Badlands and Toad Hall announced that they would stop using Patronscan while reviewing their security procedures.
“We have heard the concerns regarding the use of PatronScan at Badlands and Toad Hall in San Francisco, and we are listening,” Brian Aranda, director of operations at both bars, said in a statement obtained by Gazetteer SF. “Effective immediately, we are pausing the use of PatronScan while we review our ID verification and security practices.”
For now, the bars are returning to the most classic security technology available: a person looking at your ID.
“Our security teams will continue to thoroughly check IDs manually during this time,” Aranda said. “We appreciate everyone who has shared their concerns and remain committed to providing a safe and welcoming environment for all.”
The decision marked a sharp reversal for Badlands and a notable moment for the Castro. Gazetteer SF had previously reported that the bar’s director of operations said in June that the venue intended to continue using Patronscan despite concerns about the technology.
Then the boycott campaign gathered momentum.
Sometimes the community really does have the best customer feedback department.
The Castro has history with surveillance
Fight for the Future’s campaign asks performers to require venues to disable facial recognition and other invasive surveillance technology during their appearances or refuse to perform at venues that will not comply.
The organization has placed particular emphasis on the Bay Area, including venues in the Castro, because of concerns about surveillance technology being deployed inside spaces historically associated with LGBTQ+ safety, organizing and community life.
“There is something really powerful and symbolic and scary about the fact that these are bars in the Castro,” Suleiman told Gazetteer SF. “The queer community has been on the receiving end of the worst of what surveillance can do.”
That history gives the debate a significance that goes beyond whatever happens at the front door.
For many LGBTQ+ people, gay bars have traditionally been places to gather, organize, celebrate and find community. The idea of surveillance technology entering those spaces therefore raises obvious questions about privacy, consent and who gets to collect information about the people walking inside.
And that is exactly where Fight for the Future wants the conversation to go.
The gays would like to dance without being surveilled
Fight for the Future Director Evan Greer, a transgender musician and longtime digital rights advocate, said the decisions by Badlands and Toad Hall showed that organized pressure could make businesses reconsider surveillance technology.
“AI surveillance technology is creepy for anyone going to a show or a club, but it’s particularly dangerous for members of the LGBTQ+ community who are facing increased attacks on our rights and safety,” Greer said.
Greer said LGBTQ+ patrons should not have to surrender biometric information simply to participate in community spaces.
“The backlash from the community has been swift and severe,” Greer said. “Queer and trans people want to be able to dance and gather and party without fear.”
Honestly, that’s a pretty reasonable nightlife agenda. Dance. Flirt. Find your friends. Lose your friends. Spend too much on drinks. Make a questionable decision under suspiciously flattering lighting. Nobody needs surveillance technology joining the guest list. But Fight for the Future isn’t treating the two bars’ decisions as the end of the campaign.
“Our boycott campaign has already pushed two of the most prominent venues using this stalker-tech to abandon it,” Greer said. “We won’t stop until gay bars across the country commit to never using this type of invasive and discriminatory surveillance tech at the door.”
Not Every San Francisco Venue Is Backing Down on Technology
The Castro may have scored a win, but the wider fight over surveillance technology in San Francisco’s Castro nightlife scene is still going. According to Fight for the Future and the Club 1984 project created by AI Action Now, other San Francisco venues continued using the technology after Badlands and Toad Hall made their decision.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Mix, Oracle Park and 1015 Folsom remained among the locations using face-scanning technology.
Other venues have gone in the opposite direction. Gazetteer SF reported that DNA Lounge, Cheaper than Therapy and El Rio have joined a pledge against using the technology.
So the San Francisco nightlife scene now has something besides competing drink specials to debate: how much surveillance belongs at the door? For privacy advocates, the answer is increasingly simple: less.
Your night out shouldn’t come with a surveillance question mark
The controversy comes amid broader concerns about the spread of privately operated facial recognition systems and the lack of legal restrictions governing how corporations collect and use biometric information.
Facial recognition systems generally work by capturing a person’s image and comparing biometric characteristics against stored images or databases. Privacy and civil rights organizations have raised concerns about how such systems store information, who can access it, how long data remains available and whether patrons meaningfully consent to having their biometric information collected.
Those concerns can become particularly significant in LGBTQ+ venues because surveillance can potentially create records documenting who enters spaces associated with sexual orientation, gender identity or political activity. The technology has also faced criticism over racial disparities in facial recognition accuracy, particularly when identifying Black and brown people. And the concern isn’t limited to neighborhood bars.
The Vanguard previously reported that Madison Square Garden Entertainment maintained an internal database containing information about LGBTQ+ celebrities, activists and critics while also deploying facial recognition technology at its venues. That database included Greer, who was identified internally as a facial recognition activist. Greer said the larger problem goes beyond the actions of any one entertainment company.
“I think what it illuminates for folks is that we think of surveillance as something that the government does,” Greer told the Vanguard. “And increasingly we’re heading into a future where in fact, private companies and even wealthy individuals are building surveillance capabilities that rival some nation states.”
Greer warned that private surveillance can be particularly troubling because corporations and wealthy individuals face fewer restrictions than government agencies.
“There are actually far fewer regulations and rules in place that govern how those private companies and individuals can use surveillance technologies,” Greer said.
And suddenly, the argument about a camera at the door becomes an argument about who gets to watch whom.
The Castro fight isn’t over yet
For Fight for the Future, the decisions by Badlands and Toad Hall demonstrate that the expansion of private surveillance technology isn’t inevitable. The organization wants facial recognition and similar surveillance technology to become socially and economically unacceptable in Castro spaces where people gather for music, nightlife and community — particularly venues serving populations that have historically been subjected to government and private surveillance.
The organization said it intends to continue pressuring bars, concert venues and other places of public accommodation to reject facial recognition and similar AI-powered surveillance systems. The retreat by two of the Castro’s most recognizable gay bars provides an early test of that strategy: turning concerns about privacy and civil liberties into direct pressure on businesses that deploy the technology.
For LGBTQ+ advocates, the dispute also raises a bigger question about what makes a community space genuinely safe in an era when increasingly powerful surveillance tools are becoming more accessible to private businesses.
As Greer told the Vanguard in earlier reporting, the issue ultimately extends beyond the intentions of any individual business.
“I think the bigger question here is what are we going to do as a society to put some rules in place so that wealthy and powerful individuals and companies can’t leverage their surveillance capabilities to suppress dissent, to discriminate against marginalized communities, or to otherwise consolidate their power and undermine our democratic institutions that are supposed to hold the powerful to account?”
For now, Badlands and Toad Hall are back to manual ID checks in the Castro. Which means the person at the door can once again simply look at your driver’s license photo, look at you, look back at the photo and silently decide whether you’ve somehow gotten worse at aging. The Castro has enough drama without adding surveillance to the cover charge.
Source: Vanguard