Taylor Lorenz’s Power User - Bars Are Secretly Scanning Your Face And Tracking You

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

Most people hand their ID to a bouncer without thinking twice. But what if your local bar was monitoring way more than your age?SUPPORT MY WORK: Buy a paid subscription to my newsletter at usermag.co          Support my work on Patreon: http://patreon.com/taylorlorenz     Cydney Hayes is a tech and business reporter at the Gazetteer SF.and she joins me for this week's Free Speech Friday to discuss her investigation into Patronscan, a creepy biometric surveillance system being integrated into bars and restaurants across the country. We examine how these systems collect personal information, photograph and surveil patrons as they move from bar to bar, build databases, and raise serious questions about privacy, biometric tracking, facial recognition, and data collection.We discuss:How PatronScan worksWhy bars are adopting these systemsWhat information is collectedPrivacy concerns surrounding biometric dataFacial recognition and surveillance technologyHow customer databases are createdThe legal controversies surrounding PatronScanWhy surveillance is expanding into everyday spacesWhat this means for the future of privacyAs surveillance technology spreads from airports and retail stores into restaurants, bars, and nightlife, it's becoming increasingly important to understand how these systems operate and what tradeoffs they create.

I was pretty surprised to learn that these had been there for at least a year at some bars. I had somebody DM me on Signal and say, I've been working at a bar that's had patron scan for nine years. And I found that really surprising considering I have never seen something like this in a bar. Okay, picture something for me. It's Friday night. You're out with some friends. You hit up the bar. You hand the bounce of your IDs and you walk past this little black stick. It almost looks like a jewel or something.

and you don't think twice about any of this. Well, in that brief little interaction, you might have just given away a massive amount of data and allowed yourself to be scanned, tagged, and analyzed by an invasive surveillance system. That system is called Patron Scan, and it's operating across the country. It's a biometric and personal data collection device

meet by serval data systems, previously known as Serval Biometrics. And Patron Scan is being integrated into countless LGBTQ bars in San Francisco. Sydney Hayes is a tech and business reporter at the Gazetteer and she broke this story. Today she's joining me to discuss why all of these San Francisco gay bars suddenly have TSA-style face scanners,

how these surveillance conglomerates are building databases of problematic patrons, and why, increasingly, just buying a beer at your local bar might mean giving up your address, gender, and a lot of highly sensitive personal information to corporations. Sydney, you welcome. Thanks for having me.

So tell me how this story got onto your radar. Yeah, so my coworker, Eddie, Kim, our city reporter, came into the office a couple weeks ago and he was going out in the Castro, which is like the gay area in San Francisco over Memorial Day weekend. And he went into this bar called The Mix and like any normal bar, he just hands his ID the Bouncer and then goes back to chatting with his friends. But one of his friends saw the bouncer scan her ID on like a black little box device, kind of like a TSA scanner. And then she also noticed that there's like a camera. It looks kind of like the memory eraser in men in black.

It's pretty like slim and easy to not notice. So he came back into the office and basically told me to check that out because his friend was kind of disturbed. He was also kind of confused. And so that's kind of what alerted me to that this was there in the Castro. So you start looking into it and discover that it's this company called Patron Scan, which has been around for a while, that it sounds like is being integrated into more and more bars in San Francisco. Can you explain what Patron Scan is and how it works?

So Patron Scan is an ID verification hardware and software system. They have, you know, hardware that scans IDs. They have monitors where you can look through the patrons that have come in, verify their IDs, and they also have cameras that photograph. So that's basically what Patron Scan does. Okay, so Patron Scan is set up to harvest all of this information. It's integrated into more and more bars. I mean, I think it's so insidious. Like you said, that it's really just this like really slim camera. You might not even notice that the bar you're going to do, especially if you've had a couple drinks, has this surveillance system integrated? Why would an increasing number of bars seek to work with these systems like Patron Scan? The main part of

their marketing is about safety. I even in my research was going through and listening to some interviews and podcasts that some of their executives have done and around Like 2022, I heard a couple of different interviews of some executives talking about how in COVID there had been this uptick in crime and these cuts to policing. So that idea of safety and adding these extra levels or layers of security, that is definitely the main idea that they are bringing to bars in order to sell them on this technology. I think it's so insidious how surveillance is always packaged with safety, right? I mean, this is like classic even just back to 9-11, right?

We saw the biggest expansion of the surveillance state in our lifetime. Now we're seeing all of these mass surveillance laws being passed on the internet under the guys of online safety. And, you know, after your story, patron scan issued this press announcement trying to kind of like, I guess, put cool water on your story and like debunk something, although they didn't ultimately really debunk anything. But what stood out to me was this one line where they wrote for venues like our clients in the Castro, safety, Safety matters deeply when someone brings hatred, prejudice, or harmful intent into an LGBTQ space and gets removed and flagged, our system makes sure they can't just dust themselves off and walk into the next bar down the street.

First of all, they're just like rainbow washing mass surveillance. And I would love to hear from this company how many times they've successfully blocked like some anti-LGB bigot from entering another bar and causing harm? Because this just seems ridiculous. And also, not. to defend the anti-LGB bigots, obviously, but being anti-LGBQ shouldn't mean that you can't go

into a bar down the street. I mean, even if you said something bigoted at one bar, got into an altercation, it says something offensive. It's kind of disturbing then that you could have your information scanned and be banned from all the bars on the block. Yeah, the idea of this safety argument is hard to argue against because especially in queer bars and gay bars, like there have been attacks. And so this safety argument is so strong, like it's a really easy argument to make. There was a petition that started after this article started gaining traction from this digital rights organization called Fight for the Future. It's its Bay Area-based digital rights organization. So I was talking to one of the campaign managers there and I asked her about it and I was like,

how, like, what do you say in, you know, response to that sort of argument? And basically her response was, you know, we have to be really clear and specific and really honest about what are the trade-offs when we talk about safety? Like one safety for whom? Who are we qualifying as, as patron scan calls them troublemakers? Like they refer to them as troublemakers a lot. They never say bigots, they never say violent actors. I mean, maybe they say that like in really specific lists of infractions that you could make,

but they call them troublemakers. And so that could mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people, depending on what company is using this technology or what patron scan as a company, as a company considers troublemakers. And so I think there's that. Yeah, I also couldn't find any sort of like public guidelines on its website or system anywhere that says, like here is the behavior that's banned. It seems like it's totally up to the merchant and their customer in terms of who they qualify

as a troublemaker, which is inherently subjective. And I do worry about them integrating things like AI tools, which an increasing amount of these surveillance systems are integrating. You know, we see similar systems like this being rolled out in schools, as I've talked about previously on this channel, even on school buses. And they claim to use AI to target troublemakers. And they say, like, you know, we can identify the school bully before the school bully, you know, gets to the next kid.

Let's put it on school buses, you know? And what we find is actually these systems repeatedly flag underprivileged kids, kids of color, gender non-conforming people, disabled people, like, who's defined as a troublemaker, who's defined as like an outlier in these systems are often the marginalized people themselves. So for them to sort of try to reframe this and claim that, you know, these systems just exist to protect marginalized people. And there's some like woke company is just very hilarious to me.

And some of their marketing materials, you can like zoom in and see an example person going through the infractions. So they do have some lists infractions. One, I don't know if you can make, you know, type in a new infraction. But two, there are some really vague ones like there was something like bad behavior or like disruptive behavior. So that could be interpreted in a lot of different ways. The other thing about patron scan is that it's actually like how preventative is it? It's not necessarily like a metal detector or anything like that, which I'm not saying we should implement in bars, but it's really for after the fact, right, if there has been a theft or something like that, that they can then not let that person back in.

I think the fact that they are sort of creating these networks is what's really concerning to me. Like, again, you hear patrons get talking about like being able to ban someone from down the street or like putting you on this list. And I just, I think this is an example of like an increasing number of ways that we see the surveillance tech being used to potentially discriminate against people. Often as well, because a lot of times these bartenders or these bouncers don't necessarily want confrontation, they might not give you a legitimate reason, right? You might just suddenly be getting denied suddenly at bars in your neighborhood. You might not be able to walk in certain places. and you won't ever really know why. You won't know that you're on this list.

Patron scan, as far as I can tell, doesn't proactively inform you that you're on these lists. And they're collecting, you know, thousands and thousands of people. Back in 2018, they already had tens of thousands of people on their ban lists. So, you know, who knows how many they have now, I would imagine hundreds of thousands, if not more. And so all of that just seems really concerning.

One thing I also noticed when I was listening to those executive interviews in my research is they also talk about this idea of behavior change a lot. This idea that patrons go in who aren't necessarily trying to commit crimes or going in being a bad actor, that even they know they're being watched. And so they're going to be on their best behavior. That's kind of the way that those executives market it to the venues or, you know, publicly.

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Every dollar of your support makes such a difference. It reminds me of that really famous Larry Ellison quote from a couple years ago where he was talking about how we need mass surveillance and censorship and how basically we should be surveilling everybody at all times online and off. He said, quote, citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on. And he was saying that, you know, again, that this threat of being watched will make you behave better. This is terrible, especially in a place like a bar where people just want to kind of like be a little bit uninhibited. I've reported a lot on these surveillance systems being integrated into retail

environments. And a lot of times, I actually think something that's really sad now is that like we're all familiar with the CCTV camera, with the, you know, anti-shoplifting measures. We all know that if we go into a CVS, we're being surveilled and I guess we're behaving accordingly, although they're still putting all the deodorant behind the locked cages or whatever. But I feel like putting this type of surveillance tech into a bar is just like it's, it's integrating into a place that I think a lot of people don't expect to be surveilled, especially bars are dark, you're not seeing these cameras. Maybe you expect, like, some security cameras on the outside of a bar, right? Because there's bar fights. But inside of a bar, and especially when

you're walking into a bar, seems really invasive. Yeah, I think that is part of why in the Castro and the people who came across this article have had such a strong reaction to it, especially considering what the Castro represents is freedom and expression and not being inhibited, not feeling surveilled by corporations or outside parties that might not like your behavior. And so I think that was really disturbing for a lot of people to learn that it's not just one bar. It's actually a network of bars that have this. And they don't necessarily tell you when you're on your way in because, yeah, maybe you're tipsy or maybe you're just not paying attention.

And, you know. And there's apparently a class action suit against this company, too. Right? Yeah. In 2023, there was a class action lawsuit in Illinois because Illinois has pretty strict biometric privacy laws. So some woman went to a concert. She found out that she had been scanned by Patron Scan and then she filed a lawsuit on her

behalf and others' behalf against Patron Scan and really against its parent company, which at the time is called Serval Biometrics. It's now changes named to Serval Data Systems and now they claim that they don't take biometric data. But at the time, it was called Serval Biometrics. That lawsuit was settled out of court, but that's just one of these many kind of privacy concerns that bubble up basically every year about patron scam. Well, also, I hate that it was settled out of court. This is always the worst outcome because it's like, okay, great, maybe she got like $100 for her data or something.

But now the company doesn't have to release info, it doesn't have to go through litigation, we don't get to learn anything. Like, they probably didn't change their practices and it all gets swept under the rug. Right. There's even in the document of the lawsuit, there's some references that the plaintiff makes that link to Patron Scan's website. All those pages are now taken down. It's a private company, so yeah, there's not a lot of public information about how they do business and what they do with this data. I also wonder what this type of data could be used for. You know, Patron Scan claims, oh, we only retain the data for 21 days and you can delete it, blah, blah, blah. I don't believe that for a sense. second. I don't believe any of these companies, only because they all seem to have sort of universally abysmal data privacy practices. But that data can easily be hacked as well, or it can be vulnerable, you know, for different data brokers to eventually get their hands on it. And Patriot scan is,

is collecting a lot. You know, they claim they don't directly collect biometric data, which I also don't believe because they're scanning effectively people's faces. But they're also logging things like where customers live, the household demographics for that area, how far, each customer traveled to which bar and how many different bars they visited. So they're building these really highly detailed location-based profiles on consumers. And we know that that data is incredibly valuable, not just to advertisers, but also to the police and law enforcement. There's also been a previous reporting on Patron Scan where it talks about how businesses can flag big spenders and add a higher kind of value score.

to certain kinds of patrons that come in. And obviously, if some people have high value scores, that implies low value scores, that language seems to have been removed from their website. So I also think that implies a little bit of kind of obfuscating information and exactly what they're doing. But since, I don't know, 2017,

so for almost a decade, almost every article or public kind of knowledge around patron scan has been about privacy. concerns. Plus, in 2020, they were sent a cease and desist letter from three government agencies in Canada. They're a Canadian-based company from the Privacy Commissioner of Alberta, British Columbia, and Canada. That basically said, you're using our government logos. That implies we approve your operations. That is misleading. That is false. Obviously, I think they probably remove those logos. I don't see those logos on their website anymore, but that also is really weird. So I just think

there's a lot of kind of operations in business that the way that they approach privacy that I find a little concerning. Yeah, it just shows that they're willing to engage in like deceptive marketing and dubious business practices, which makes me trust them even less. I think the low score, like low patron score thing is so concerning because you could also see a bar potentially scan you. I mean, this is like what they talk about when everybody fearmongers over this idea of like a social credit score or whatever, which we effectively have in America today. We know these big credit brokers like Experian, et cetera, are some of the biggest data brokers out there. But that data could also be valuable to insurance companies, to car companies, to anything.

You know, I think what's really scary is that these data profiles, even individually might seem more harmless or the company can argue, well, this data, you know, in isolation can't be used for XYZ. But coupled with a lot of other data could be quite incriminating for a person or harmful to a person or, again, could be used to deny them benefits. or charge them more. I mean, it's easy to see as well as we move into surveillance pricing and bars who have always kind of engaged in dynamic pricing, right? It's like happy hour special, maybe you charge a little bit more late night. Like it seems like bars are willing to already kind of squeeze big patrons in different ways. You know, they could be using this data to do it even

more or target specific customers. And it all goes further and further into this kind of like dystopia. And I don't know why to me like bars should be so sacred, but I'm like, God, can't people have like one thing, like one night out, you know? I know. And I feel like in this day and age, especially just with the pinopticon of just our phones, let alone, like beyond CCTVs and private surveillance networks. I agree. I think there's a lot of, you know, loneliness and isolation that places like bars are really

important to, like you said, you know, be uninhibited and learn to interact with people in a space that I think is like we're slipping a little on that, on that skill as a collective society. And so I think the idea that we should be more social to implement more surveillance into social spaces probably will not do us any good. Yeah, well, it just creates anxiety. I mean, I think that, and that's what Larry Allison is getting at.

It's like everybody will be nervous. Like your nervous system will be on alert at all times. And yeah, it's not conducive to social interaction. We know that this is actually a factor in driving youth mental health issues, that young people feel like they're going to be surveilled everywhere, you know, in their schools, at lunch, on the school bus. Like, there's no time to just relax and be yourself

and kind of be anonymous, which I think is so crucial, especially for young people who are spending a lot of time at these bars or any bars, I guess, like, because they can still drink alcohol and not feel terrible. But it's about like also identity creation and identity expression, especially in the LGBTQ community. You know, some of these people might not be out. They might not be openly trans or openly queer. And so for this to be integrated,

especially in those spaces, it's just, it's horrifying. And I just like wonder what the collective load of all of this stress does because, I mean, I think about like I have a stalker, which I've talked about, it was just so annoying. And it's like, when you have a stalker, anybody that's dealt with stalking knows this, it's like you can never truly relax because they could be anywhere, especially when my stalker moved across the country to kind of find me. It's like, you're like, is that person around the corner from you, right? Like, who's watching you? You always feel stressed.

And we basically sort of like democratized that experience to everyone through systems like patrons scan. One thing I found really striking to when I was reporting this article, I stood outside for a little after talking to the bouncer and I talked to the people in line. And some people were totally okay with the fact that they were having data collected and that there was a photograph being taken regardless. regardless of if they were informed of that or not, they kind of just brushed it off.

And a lot of them, their response was, we're used to it. You know, we're used to having our phones recognize this, which I do think is different on your phone or on your computer than in public and having a networked database of your photograph. But I did think that was interesting. That was an interesting response that they were just kind of like, we're used to it.

And those people that I was talking to were definitely earlyish 20s. And so I think that was kind of an interesting signal about what people think about surveillance. It's actually crazy how much like the phone and Apple's just like face scanning tech has normalized the idea of harvesting biometric data or scanning your face or posing for photographs, you know, when you walk in anywhere. You hear this a lot. I mean, I was covering the UK's age verification systems, which will likely include facial scans. And I saw major pundits saying, well, what's the difference? In one case, I think it was even a tech reporter saying, you know, well, okay, well, why are people so up in arms? You scan your face, you know, to open your phone every day.

Why shouldn't you scan your face to, I guess, access every single piece of content on the internet? It's like, okay, so one is a closed system and you're scanning your face to open your personal device and your data is controlled by a very like privacy forward company like Apple. Again, it's a very private interaction. And in these other cases, it's for a third-party data harvesting and it's being used to to build these profiles. And that's just so radically different.

That's like being like, well, you unlock your front door every night. Why shouldn't you give a key to everyone in the neighborhood and every single corporation that delivers to you? It's like, OK, that's completely different. I don't think I want to give every single corporation that I interact with a key to my house, you know? And so I just think people need to like have a better understanding of privacy.

And it's interesting to hear you say that a lot of Gen C. patrons like weren't worried about it. And I think that's because their privacy has been so successfully. eroded that they've sort of given up. I mean, that's basically what they said. They weren't so, like, down about it, honestly. But that is basically what they said,

is that they were like, we're used to it. One thing I'll say, though, on the other side of it, that makes me a little bit optimistic, is obviously this story got a lot of attention because people were really rattled by this information. They probably were going to these bars, not noticing that they were getting photographed or scanned or whatever the company wants to refer to it as.

So one, the first, the first thing, fact that people are kind of up in arms about it, I think is sort of a good sign. Two, I finally did get a response from one of the bars who said that they now will kind of do staff training around how the bouncers inform the patrons coming in that they will be photographed and that they will, the patrons will be able to opt out of being photographed, which obviously when I went in and when some of the people that I talked to went in, we didn't know we're being photographed, so we can't really opt out of that. Plus, on Reddit and some of the conversations I've been seeing online, I also saw some people talking about how this is concerning and

harmful because, like you were saying earlier, who knows where this data is going to go? It can be used. Then if you're marked for over intoxication, you know, or being too drunk or being rowdy, whatever, that an insurance company could get a hold of that and things like that. So I thought that was kind of good to see that people are thinking about that. But as a At the same time, that was online and in real life, I did talk to a bunch of people who were kind of just like, whatever. Well, also, I mean, Patriotscan hasn't changed their policy. They're still saying that they'll happily hand over your data to police and law enforcement,

and they seem to do that regularly. And especially considering, like, trans people are being, you know, having their existence criminalized and all of this other stuff, you could see how concerning it is. Or I'm thinking of a birth control app, you know, tracking that a woman missed her cycle. Maybe she goes out and binge drinks a lot and then ends up having a miscarriage. Who knows? That could be used to potentially help prosecute her. I mean, we already see examples of these types of things happening in terms of surveillance tech being used against marginalized people or against, you know, anybody who's engaging in

behavior, I guess, that the Trump administration doesn't like. So, yeah, it feels kind of bleak. I also think that like patron scan to me seems like the tip of the iceberg. I mean, this is just like one company. There are competitors to patron scan. And also, I just think like bars and restaurants generally are becoming more. or tech enabled. I mean, speaking of COVID since the pandemic started, you've seen a lot of bars permanently enact even just QR codes and using these QR code systems to track customers, having

them log in. Suddenly you have an account with all of these different bars and restaurants or third-party services that, you know, they're vendors of these bars and restaurants. And I just think there is a lot more data being collected, monetized, you know, analyzed, et cetera, in the past few years. Totally. And beyond, you know, like we were saying earlier about like flex pricing, that can open you up to being charged more or, you know, totally scammed out of a fair price, it's just a bad experience. I think it actually, like you were saying earlier with these bars and restaurants should feel sacred. Like they should feel like we can go there and socialize and not be at work and not be at home and not be surveilled. And it's,

sad to see that these, you know, have brought in this technology. Well, I hope more people pay attention to it and pay attention when they're on a night out. Like, is there ID being scanned into a system? Is it being recorded? Are they being photographed? And just also have these conversations, like your local bar or, you know, just raise awareness. I think the fact that a lot of people didn't know the name of the company, Patron Scan. This company has been at this for a while.

In this article from 2018 and One Zero, the author writes, In 2014, Multoma County, Oregon launched a program implementing ID scanners made by Patron Scans parent-cans parent company, Serval Biometrics, in all of the downtown bars. The scanners were purchased by a nonprofit with a county contract with the stated goal of reducing alcohol abuse. A few bars refused to implement the system, but many relented, stating to local media that they were pressured by police and local authorities. Ultimately, that program was suspended, but that was back in 2014.

You know, so I feel like none of this stuff is new, and I think we just need to have an increasing awareness of it. And as AI systems are integrated into these things, and as they expand and as like law enforcement especially seeks to garner more and more access to these systems and buy more commercially available data, we should try to get these out of bars as much as we can. Yeah, I was pretty surprised to learn that these had been there for at least a year at some bars, if not more. I had somebody DM me on Signal and say, I've been working at a bar. not in the castor up, but somewhere else in San Francisco that's had patron scan for nine years. And I found that really surprising considering I have never seen something like this in a bar. The person I interviewed originally, you know, my coworker's friend, she had never seen something like this in a bar. So that was surprising to hear. And like I said, when you come in,

maybe you're a little tipsy, they are bars. You don't really notice it. And if you're not being actively told eye to eye by the balancer, you are being photographed. I am taking your ID and it's scanning it rather than just, you know, taking it, kind of looking at it and handing it back to you, you just have no idea. So I found that pretty surprising. Yeah, we all need to be more aware and pay more attention to, you know, what's happening. And I just think like also just ask, right? Like, where is this? Where is this going? I am definitely the annoying person that anytime anyone wants to scan my face, I'm like, no, I do not consent. Like, I like go the whole like sovereign citizen route. I'm like, I will not, you know, or like, where is this data going?

And I did get one place in LA to successfully roll back their facial sort of scan system. I'm not sure it was patron scan. I think it had a different name. This was a couple of years ago, but I was so concerned because I meet with sources regularly. And in this case, I was bringing sources to this establishment. And I was so nervous that like there would be some sort of record of me meeting with specific employees at tech companies that were speaking to me for a story at that time. And, you know, and the fact that like,

like we suddenly have to like scan our faces. I'm like, no, this is, this is just a bad system for everyone involved. The fact that you say that, and I haven't totally thought about that, I'm glad we're talking about it. I feel like this is kind of the reason you have to talk about it because, yeah, that's very true. Yeah, I know, I was watching the trailer for that new Slop, like, social network, you know, whatever sequel, it's gonna be so bad. But they're, the guy, like, the reporter is like meeting Francis Howgan, like, under a tree

in a park or whatever. And I was actually thinking that's a terrible place to meet because they have cameras all over parks now. Like I would rather meet in like a back alley or honestly even communicate digitally in some ways. Like talking on signal is safer than just meeting up in public these days. What with all the cameras? Like I said earlier, I'm glad that Badlands, which is one of the bars in the Castro that I named in the article, that they got back to me and said that they're going to give people the option to opt out at least. Like, I hope that they follow through on that, and the bouncers really do say, you don't have to have your photograph taken.

Because when I asked the bouncer, am I going to be photographed? He said, oh, it already happened. It's like, you've got to tell me that before. Amazing. I think we should start a list of anti-surveillance bars. And I think it should be like, it's like a shared Google Maps list or something of places you could go where you know that you will not be surveilled and your data will not be harvested because I would patronize those establishments. That would be good. Well, Sydney, thank you so much for joining me today.

and I can't wait to continue to follow your reporting in the Gazeteer. All right, that's it for this week's episode of Free Speech Friday. If you like my work, please, please support me on Patreon via the link below or by a paid subscription to my substack newsletter at Usermag.com. That's usermag.com where I cover all this stuff and more. I send a weekly roundup of everything that I'm reading and following online. Again, that's usermag.com or my Patreon linked below. I have no long-term advertising partnerships right now.

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