[FOS] Madison Square Garden hit with class action lawsuit over apparent data breach after hackers allegedly accessed sensitive visitor data from up to 26 million people collected through James Dolan’s controversial surveillance and facial-recognition system used at the Knicks home arena.
The suit against Madison Square Garden Entertainment was filed Tuesday in New York federal court, one day after cybercrime group ShinyHunters claimed to have hacked the company’s internal systems to obtain everything from biometric facial recognition data and background check information to credit scores and Social Security numbers. The suit comes three days after the Knicks defeated the Spurs in Game 5 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio to take home the 2025-26 championship.
The suit says MSG Entertainment has a “tempestuous history with respect to data privacy,” and notes that “despite a slew of lawsuits regarding this conduct, as well as consternation from privacy advocates and legislators in New York, the Arena—at the direction of its owner James Dolan—continues to collect biometric information from each visitor.”
The facial recognition technology has allegedly been used at MSG since 2018, and has come under fire before. In 2023, MSG Entertainment drew scrutiny, including from New York attorney general Letitia James, for using the technology to find and remove lawyers from Knicks and Rangers games for the sole reason that they worked at a firm that was involved in active litigation with the company.