Chinese Temple Bathroom Installs Facial Recognition to Stop Toilet Paper Thieves

March 20, 2017

In an attempt to stop locals from stealing tissue paper from the Temple of Heaven public bathrooms, a facial recognition device which allocates tissue paper to the user was installed.

This new face recognition device inside the Temple of Heaven public bathrooms is on a two-week trial and if the people don’t like it, the management said that they will take the devices down.

However, you can’t blame the establishment for putting on this modern device, especially when their toilet paper gets stolen in alarming amounts.

Locals who frequent these bathrooms gather as much toilet paper as they can, amounting to about 30 rolls of lost tissue per rest room. In a previous report by Shanghaiist, locals came with shopping bags to stuff as much tissue as they could.

To deal with the problem, the face recognition devices were installed in three restrooms. When a tourist or local wants to get toilet paper, they only need to stand in front of the camera to have their faces scanned. Afterwards, they are allotted a 60-cm long piece of tissue paper.

In order to prevent repeaters, the machine is programmed to allocate toilet paper to the same person once every nine minutes. Some workers are also around the premise in case someone needs help in using the facial recognition device.

Nine minutes is fairly long to wait around to get your free tissue – unless you’re an obsessive hoarder or you’re really broke.

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