One of China’s greatest modern technological marvels is slowly spreading to public bathrooms across the country, combating the evil that is toilet paper waste and theft.
A restroom in the Shandong capital of Jinan’s Baotu Spring Park has recently installed a facial recognition toilet paper dispenser. In order to get their hands on some of the precious paper, visitors must have their faces scanned. They then receive a strip of toilet paper about 30 cm long for free. After that, they can receive no more from the machine for a certain period of time.
Check out the photo gallery above for a glimpse of this somewhat eerie process. It’s not clear why developers thought that giving these machines creepy glowing eyes was a good idea.
Until I saw this picture, I never realized that face recognition technology for rationing toilet paper was so scary. https://t.co/aN5U5114nK pic.twitter.com/F1lFgzLTZF
— Chris Buckley 储百亮 (@ChuBailiang) December 18, 2018
This tech was first rolled out in China at the public restrooms of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing last March after reports emerged that locals were visiting the bathrooms and making off with as much free toilet paper as they could carry. Since then, they have been popping up in various cities including Shanghai.
