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Comment by leggomylibro | Hacker News Reader

>a toilet roll dispenser at a public facility outside the Temple of Heaven in Beijing reportedly scans faces to keep people from stealing too much paper,

I have several questions:

1. Wait, am I stealing paper when I use a public restroom? Are those dispensers like the 'take a penny, leave a penny' tills?

2. Is there an acceptable amount of stealing which the facial recognition limits, or does it alert the management any time that paper is dispensed and leave the judgement to human beings?

3. There are literally cameras in the stalls?

4. How long is its memory? If it shuts me down, can I simply wait for someone else to go in before resuming my theft?

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All red herrings.

I heard of the toilet paper issue yesterday in a radio programme. It was in context of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. They combine facial recognition, voice recognition and old fashioned human policemen to instantly stop dissidents. They boast when someone starts shouting "Long live Dalai Llama ! Freedom to Tibet(...)" they shut him down within 60-70 seconds.

There are guard posts all over the place. Temples bigger than a phone booth have a police station inside.

When they arrested 4 wealthiest inhabitants, it took people months to realize that. The information net is so tight.

Surveillance is the goal, not the means. Savings on toilet paper is just a bonus and a convenient excuse. Granted, Lhasa is a hotspot and gets special treatment, but China is all too happy to export these measures to various dictators to promote The China Way.

Native chinese blog poster gets a sentence for criticizing the government for sending army patrols to (some other) unruly region. He was saying it alienates the population and is overkill.

Your questions would earn you a fine at the very least.

Good point, I guess it's pretty facile to make a joke about that sort of thing.

Still, though. Poop.

It sounds ridiculous when taken out of context, but the point the radio guest (polish TOK FM statio) was making was: when surveillance is ubiquitous, they can get away with anything. People become used to surveillance and afraid. An isolated rebel can't achieve much, it would take multiple people all over the region to make a difference.

It's explained in the linked BBC[1] article: "The machines dispense strips of toilet paper measuring 60 to 70cm (24 to 27.5 inches) to each person. They will not dispense more paper to the same person until after nine minutes have passed. Visitors to the Temple of Heaven park's toilets were taking excessive amounts of toilet paper, some of whom were seen stuffing their bags." The photo in the article shows that the automated paper dispensers are located outside the stalls. Without even talking about an Orwellian surveillance society, this seems like an over-engineered, inconvenient, and expensive solution to a minor problem.

[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39324431

Before you had to bring your own toilet paper (when I visited the Temple of Heaven for the first time in 1999), or you could buy some from the attendant for a few mao (cents). Now that attendants are too expensive, they have to come up with something else, while tourists from the lesser tier cities still see bathroom provided toilet paper as a luxury.

It seems like this problem could more easily be solved with a vending machine than a complicated facial recognition apparatus.

Vending machines still means you’d have to pay for it. Beijing tried to market itself as international-level tourism, but can’t provide free TP? That would be too much loss of face (pun intended).

Might be remembering wrong, but I thought when I went to the Eiffel Tower about 30 years ago, I had to pay to use the bathroom (there was a coin thing on the door to the stalls). That doesn't seem very different to me, though obviously someone can pay to use a toilet and take all the toilet paper if it's on a roll inside.

Bathrooms in London train stations used to be free - but a few years back, a lot of them started charging money. Usually around 20p, sometimes as much as 50p [1].

You can usually avoid paying (many stations have pubs and restaurants with free toilets, for example) but you don't have to go to 30 years ago to find OECD countries charging for public toilets :)

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/07/train-statio...

I’m not sure what the point is. I encountered for-pay toilets long before I learned to pack my own TP around in Beijing. It’s just not very comparable. A good day was when you could find one that was sitting and not squatting.

I think they wanted to make it free but still deal with the fact that anything that isn't nailed down will get stolen in China. Even toilet paper - you should see the "rations" many hotels there give to guests for a night's stay.

> anything that isn't nailed down will get stolen

In Brazil as well.

So.... Can you at least say, "Ok, but I'll pay for more" in the event you find you need more (due to digestive issues)?

I mean, unless that 70cm is soft double plied tissue, you are not gonna get many wipes out of it.

It would be a surprise to find any toilet paper in a public toilet, so someone who needs it will already have their own. Remember, the alternative to this is not unlimited toilet paper but no toilet paper, so it's an improvement for everyone.

>> Remember, the alternative to this is not unlimited toilet paper but no toilet paper ...

... but no toilet paper and no surveillance in the crapper ...

Minister to developer: "people are stealing toilet paper from stalls We have to stop this!"

developer to Minister: "ideal use case for Machine Learning--i'm on it"

In many places in China, you either take your own toilet paper or the dispenser is outside the stalls. That is to say, you take a wad of paper before entering the stalls. It stems from when toilet paper was a luxury item.

> Wait, am I stealing paper when I use a public restroom?

In China most public restrooms don't have any toilet paper and you have to bring your own. If this one is stocked with free paper, they may be trying to prevent people from taking extra to use in other restrooms.

Isn't the toilet paper there meant to dry/clean your hand after you used the latter to clean your downstairs area using the water that is also near the toilet?

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