Massive Attack deny claims they are using facial recognition technology at shows: “Outright lies”

Posted On September 24, 2025September 24, 2025

Massive Attack have labelled reports of them using facial recognition technology at their concerts as “outright lies”.

Last week, a series of Instagram posts were made, which claimed that Massive Attack had used facial recognition technology to project images of audience members onto the screen behind them, which the trip-hop pioneers have now debunked.

They began by writing, “Last week, a number of platforms including Somewhere.Media, Hidden and others ran stories relating to our live show & the apparent use of live facial recognition technology. Via the brainless duplication chambers of Al generated IG accounts, the ‘story’ snowballed, & between entertainment platforms & Al clonethink, nobody & nothing bothered to factcheck.”

Massive Attack then accused Somewhere.Media of acting with “nowhere near any basic reporting standard” and aired their grievances with the platform for alleging “show material was ‘pulled from public databases’”.

The band then clarified, “Firstly, no Massive Attack live show has ever recorded or stored personal data. Secondly, only government departments, relevant authorities & approved contractors can access public databases in the UK, & doing so in multiple cities/countries would be impossible.”

They continued, “Our show system is live-only, using a simple face-detection effect, combined with a completely fictional ‘database’ that is randomly assigned.” Massive Attack described the artistic endeavour as “a provocation on the hyper-expansion of surveillance capitalism”, before adding, “With recent emphasis placed on ICE repression & targeting of students, & student repression in Serbia depicted via face tags that describe specific roles in student protests.”

Massive Attack wrapped up their statement by turning their attention to the UK government for “overreaching almost all other western democracies with their use of public facial recognition … while there is no specific legislation regulating police use of these systems”.

Last week, Massive Attack revealed they had requested that their music be removed from Spotify due to the streaming platform’s CEO, Daniel Ek, leading a €600million investment into Helsing, an AI military start-up producing drones, aircraft and submarines.

They said, “In the separate case of Spotify, the economic burden that has long been placed on artists is now compounded by a moral & ethical burden, whereby the hard-earned money of fans & the creative endeavours of musicians ultimately funds lethal, dystopian technologies.”

Their full statement on facial recognition is available to view below.

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