Print concert attendees’ names on tickets: Maharashtra cyber police to BookMyShow
The directive comes after tickets for concerts of Coldplay and Diljit Dosanjh’s Dil-Luminati tour were found being sold for exorbitant amounts in black market.
In order to combat black marketing and scalping of tickets to big concerts and events, the Maharashtra cyber police have directed BookMyShow (BMS) to implement name-based ticketing for all popular concerts and events and verify tickets against government-issued identity cards at the concerned event from December 15.
The directive comes after tickets for concerts of English band Coldplay and Indian singer Diljit Dosanjh’s Dil-Luminati tour were found being sold for exorbitant amounts in the black market.
“[Starting] from 15th December 2024, for concerts and events that are likely to sell out or where demand far exceeds supply, it will be mandatory to implement name-based ticketing. The attendee’s name should be either printed on the ticket or band or incorporated into the QR code of the RFID band. Additionally, tickets must be verified against a government-issued IF card on the day of the event to prevent misuse,” the directive sent by Abhijit Sonawane, police inspector in the nodal cyber police station, said.
Sonawane told HT that this directive is meant for all event organisers. “We will issue the directives to PayTM Insider and Zomato as well,” he said.
The Maharashtra cyber police have made a list of 10 checks and balances that must be implemented for upcoming concerts, including the one of American band Maroon 5 on December 3 in Mumbai. However, BMS has been permitted to organise the Maroon 5 concert without name-based ticketing “as a one-time exception”.
The 10 to-dos that the police wants BMS to follow, including for the Maroon 5 concert, include implementing AI-based firewalls to filter out bot traffic, monitoring social media for posts and ads of ticket resales at inflated prices and reporting them to relevant authorities, monitoring repeated attempts by same individuals to bypass the digital queue, and identifying repetitive patterns (like use of the same mobile number, email address, delivery address, payment method) for ticket purchases and reporting suspicious patterns to law enforcement agencies.
On the day of the event, the police has directed BMS to “deploy undercover personnel around the venue to identify scalpers”; deploy additional people to ensure that at least 500 attendees are randomly checked to verify that the person who made the booking is present with a valid government ID, and randomly ask attendees if they bought tickets at “premium prices” and report such instances.
The police also want BMS to send OTPs to the registered mobile numbers of the random attendees. It wants BMS to use dynamic QR codes that refresh periodically so that scalpers find it harder to resell or duplicate tickets, and to use tamper-proof bands.
The cyber police had also issued a notice to BMS under section 168 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023 (which replaced the Code of Criminal Procedure), empowering the police to intervene to prevent the commission of any cognizable offence.
Mumbai Police’s Economic Offences Wing started investigating the Coldplay case after a Mumbai-based lawyer, Amit Vyas, filed a PIL in the Bombay high court about the concert tickets being sold on the black market. Eventually, BMS filed an FIR in early October with Mumbai Police. The Enforcement Directorate, too, had launched search operations across five states late in October.
“It is a welcome step, though there is a long way to go. These are just some of the measures that Maharashtra Cyber Police has issued. This is a good start, but it lacks clarity,” Vyas said.
In his PIL, he had asked the government to enact a law for this. “For instance, if you look at prevailing Major Events Act in Australia, they define what is a major event. A person from the government declares an event to be a major event and thereafter, all the relevant rules for sale and resale of tickets become applicable to such events, thereby preventing ticket scalping. This requires a senior person in the government to look into this,” he said.
However, for Delhi-based technology and telecommunications lawyer Bagmisikha Puhan, the Maharashtra cyber police may have exceeded its mandate. “This notice issued under the cited section is akin to lawmaking and is seemingly beyond the scope of the powers conferred by the provision. More importantly, with there being a legal inconsistency with respect to how ticket scalping can be addressed, this notice seems excessive in nature,” she said.
Puhan, the managing partner of Puhan and Puhan LLP, said, “Certain mandates impose vigilante action to be taken by these entertainment management companies. Requiring OTPs to be sent and random inspections to be conducted at the venue is excessive, and irregular. There is no sufficient guidance to suggest that scalping can be contained by implementation of such stringent measures.”
HT has reached out to Zomato, while BMS has refused to comment.