Right. Also, my wife and I have a little game of sharing about public restrooms that we encounter. Generally, the men's rooms are far more trashed than the women's rooms. But how many establishments have surveillance cameras in their men's rooms? Not many, I suspect.
That's a good point. At the same time I'm not sure what level of privacy people expect in a public bathroom. Anything you don't want someone seeing should be done within a stall. At best I would consider a public restroom as having increased privacy, but by no means being private.
I understand that's probably a hard sell though, as people have some idea that it's verboten to record in the open space of a public restroom (it's definitely frowned upon, but I think police cameras are a good exception to have, especially if they need to enter the restroom to perform their jobs because that's where a disturbance is), so whatever gets more camera use in the end I'm on board with, from a practical standpoint.
yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. let's start slowly, only requiring a camera in the living room. then some time later, let's seek out incidents that had occurred in bathrooms, run them in the news every week to prime the masses, then they'll ask us themselves to mandate cameras in all bathrooms as well.
all detractors will be branded as pedophiles, of course
Maybe a robot operater can clean multiple restrooms at once.
> Still, I don’t think that people would be happy with a camera operated robot sniffing around their restrooms. ;)
I wouldn't probably, but if it means not having to clean their toilet, I think that many people would be happy with the tradeoff. Restrooms in public spaces wouldn't be an issue too.
> Imagine using a public urinal and you can watch an LCD screen while taking care of business.
Paper ads at the urinal are already common in some countries, because advertisers know that you have no choice but to look straight ahead. Now that you mention it, it is surprising that LCDs haven't been installed yet.
I mean those commercial toilets are what you'll find in a lot of office environments, schools, stores, etc etc. And it's the time when you're likely present in a room for someone else's flush. And, you also have no idea of who's using it. In a household, one will probably have an okay sense if someone else is sick (eg flu).
I'm torn on this one. One the one hand I would love that extra privacy.
On the other, I really value knowing if someone is in the stall next to me and how many people are in the bathroom. If the stalls extend to the ground how am I supposed to scan for legs? Someone could be hiding in there waiting to frighten me! I cannot use the bathroom until everyone has left it. Just how am I supposed to verify that some quick-footed coworker hasn't made their way in during someone's loud flush?
> At the same time I'm not sure what level of privacy people expect in a public bathroom. Anything you don't want someone seeing should be done within a stall.
If a man at a baseball game went into the restroom and up to the trough holding a smartphone that was clearly recording, he would undoubtedly find trouble. People expect not to be recorded in the bathroom.
The most practical way to prevent detection (if you're that worried) is to do your business in toilets that are in some way public. Your school, your job, the train station (if it has regularly cleaned toilets), etc.
It is a nice idea. Personally I would have no use for this device, everyone poops. everyone gets constipated and everyone gets diahorrea (hopefully not at once). Everyone makes noise.
Let us just all agree that shit happens and we can all collectively be embarrassed.
Anyway a much harder but better privacy device would be one that can combat hidden cameras in bathrooms.
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