The Chinese are known to be anal about order, utilizing any means possible to ensure everything runs smoothly without fail, even for the case of toilet paper theft. That's why to solve the problem in Temple Of Heaven, one of Beijing's famous tourist destination, authorities have installed facial recognition in public restrooms.
That's right. In movies, facial recognition technology is used for spy gadgets and such, but in Beijing, authorities use it as means to stop the constant theft of toilet paper in their public restrooms. Apparently, the culprits are mostly senior citizens who take the rolls for private use in their homes.
Now, every visitor must stand outside the entrance of the public restrooms for a few seconds to have their face scanned before going on their private business. This technology prevents people from stealing more than 23 inches of toilet paper in a 9 minute period, and if doing so, they can be easily recognized and reported to the proper authorities.
Although many people applauded the Chinese for this kind of ingenuity, some do not approve of this action. Staking someone's private information for the sake of toilet paper is rash and dangerous according to some, and unauthorized uses of this information for malign purposes may not be avoided.
Attendants are posted in each restroom to explain the mechanics to each user. In some cases though, the facial recognition machines break down forcing the attendants to manually distribute the toilet paper themselves. This circumstance also requires the attendant to painstakingly remember every face who enters so nobody could still take advantage of the toilet papers. It's hassling and very inconvenient.
China is quite big on public restrooms and toilets. To further promote the tourism in China, the government recently allocated billions of dollars to renovate and improve their public restrooms. It's called the "toilet revolution" and some features to be added to the renovations include the addition of Wi-Fi and televisions inside the toilet area.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
