Wherein the Surveillance-Industrial Complex gains another foothold in SF

SF Gazetteer, Cydney Hayes: Why do these Castro gay bars have TSA-style face scanners? The machine Owen encountered is called a Patronscan Guard+, a biometric and personal data collection device made by Servall Data Systems, a surveillance tech company headquartered in Alberta, Canada. Mix is one of at least three bars in the Castro, including Badlands and Toad Hall on 18th Street, that wheel out the Patronscan kiosk each night to collect the personal data of every customer that comes through the door, including names, addresses, genders, and even how they behave inside the bar. [...] Management from Mix, Badlands, and Toad Hall did not respond to requests for comment about when or why they first started using the surveillance tech in their businesses, so I stopped by Mix last Thursday night to check things out for myself. Like most private surveillance cameras, the Patronscan kiosk at Mix hides in plain sight. In the dim light of the bar, the black machine is easy to miss. I was also…