Users of a busy public restroom in China must stand for three seconds in front of a dispenser to receive a two-foot section of bathroom tissue.
BEIJING — A busy public restroom in China has begun deploying high-tech facial recognition technology to wipe out the problem of toilet paper theft.
At Temple of Heaven, a popular tourist attraction in Beijing, users must stand for three seconds in front of a camera-equipped dispenser in order to receive a two-foot section of bathroom tissue.
The $1,000 machine will not dispense any more to the same user for the next nine minutes.
The unusual restriction aims to «cope with the behavior of taking public toilet paper home which is theft and abuse of public resource,» a park manager told NBC News.
After providing toilet paper for free for 10 years, «we decided to use face recognition technology as our latest measure to curb excessive paper use which affects the interests of other users,» added the official, who gave his family name as Xing.
