These bathrooms in China don't mess around when it comes to toilet paper

People pass a roll of toilet paper.
(Image credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

To combat the odd crime of toilet paper theft at Beijing's Temple of Heaven Park, facial recognition software has been placed inside the park's bathroom stalls.

In order to get the allotted number of sheets, a person makes eye contact with a computer, CNN reports, and then a few pieces of toilet paper are released. Visitors better hope they don't have any issues, because once their face is recognized, they can't get any additional sheets until nine long minutes have passed. Visitors to the park say the culprits were older people who had no desire to pay for toilet paper at the store, so they just stole some from the park.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
Explore More
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.