Madison Square Garden temporarily disabled its on-site surveillance system during Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding, according to a new Wired report. The New York City venue reportedly locked security staff out of its camera network and facial recognition software for seven hours on July 2, the night of Swift and Kelce’s rehearsal dinner, and again for their wedding ceremony on the 3rd. Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Swift for comment.
Wired’s Noah Shachtman, who recently reported on MSG’s extensive celebrity database, acquired an internal memo that confirms the shutdown was the result of a “client privacy request.” However, such requests are apparently unheard of. An anonymous source told Wired that “it has never been done,” whether by NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. Discovery, or the New York Police Department—all of whom have previously held private events at properties owned by MSG CEO James Dolan. (Madison Square Garden is currently in legal proceedings against Wired over their reporting on the so-called “talent database,” which a representative for the venue called “inaccurate and false.”)
The MSG security system runs on a software called Genetec. Guests entering the building pass through biometric scanners, after which they can be monitored from camera to camera. Attendees at the Swift-Kelce nuptials would have also bypassed these scanners via a separate, private entrance, per reporting by CNN. The memo viewed by Wired does confirm that MSG’s outside-facing cameras were left on throughout the multi-day festivities.
Last month, the criminal hacker collective ShinyHunters leaked MSG’s internal “talent” database, which classified nearly 40,000 celebrities by a supposed “risk level” as well as their race, gender, and sexual orientation. Shachtman identified several of Swift’s and Kelce’s guests who also had risk scores in the database, including Selena Gomez and her husband Benny Blanco, Benson Boone, and Ice Spice.
