We welcome media inquiries and believe transparency and open conversation leads to better public understanding of how our technology works. Below is our record of this inquiry, the questions we received, our responses, and a quick fact check of the published article as it relates to Patronscan.
| Publication Name
SF Gate |
Method of Contact
|
| Date Contacted
7 August, 2026 |
Contact Name
Lizzy Rager |
Questions & Responses
Questions are listed as received. Our responses below are the complete, unedited text of what we submitted.
Question:
What is Patronscan’s response to the recent events and larger public scrutiny of the technology in queer spaces?
Our Response:
Thank you for reaching out on this! We have been following the community response closely and we’ve appreciated the chance to engage in many productive, positive conversations, provide additional information on how Patronscan works, and reassure people on the limited use and retention of any information in our system.
We’re aware of the pause on these accounts and have been in contact with the venues to offer our support in providing whatever information or adjustments they need as they work through a review of their security practices. We respect their decision to complete this review and look forward to hearing how we can help.
There are a few concerns we’ve seen come up consistently from the community that we have addressed, and we want to take the opportunity to address directly again. Patronscan does not use facial recognition technology or collect biometric data. Information gathered from an ID scan is not sold to third party companies. And for our bar and nightclub clients in California, personal data for individuals not involved in a safety incident is held for a maximum of 21 days before being permanently deleted. Patrons can contact us at any time via our website to request a copy of their personal information held in our system, or to request the deletion of their information.
We continue to believe in the value of our system in creating safe spaces for people to meet, relax, and celebrate together in person. We recognize that part of our responsibility is to continue building public trust in and understanding of our system and that this can’t be done through privacy policies or media statements alone – we have to continue holding our team and our venues to the highest standards for transparency, ethical use of our system, and following best practices in privacy and data protection.
The venues investing in safety tools such as ours are doing so because they genuinely care about the people walking through their doors. We are always happy to support our clients as they try to do right by their communities, and we value the feedback we receive to continue building and developing Patronscan in a way that makes sense for the venues using our system.
Fact Check
The resulting article from this inquiry was published on August 7, 2026. The following Fact Check is only relating to statements directly relating to Patronscan, our technology or our operations. We’re not commenting on the broader article, its sources, or unrelated claims.
| AS PUBLISHED | PATRONSCAN’S CLARIFICATION |
| The article refers to Patronscan as a “face-scanning technology” | Patronscan system does not scan faces, it takes a photograph. No analytics or facial recognition is used in our North American product. |
| Article states that ID scan and photo are stored in a database that is shared to venues that subscribe to the network. | The only data shared across multiple Patronscan venues is the information attached to Public Flags created; most scan history is only visible at the venue where the ID is scanned, and is deleted after 21 days. |
| “There is no option for patrons to opt out of having their ID scanned and photo taken at bars using Patronscan.” |
Patronscan does not dictate individual venue entry policies; option to opt-out of scanning an ID or having a photo taken lies with the individual venue and is something we are happy to support our clients with. |
We understand that news reporting is a challenge of gathering and presenting a large amount of information in a short, readable format. We publish all media responses here so you can read exactly what we said, in full. We believe open, fact-based conversation is the best way to promote understanding of our technology and the role it plays in venue safety. If you have questions or would like to speak with us directly, we’d love to hear from you at media@patronscan.com.