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Comment by dcolkitt | Hacker News Reader

Here's an off the wall idea. This technology could be used in airport bathrooms to enforce hand washing during a pandemic.

It's well established that hand washing, or lack thereof, in an airport setting can supercharge the global spread of disease. The spread of coronavirus could be reduced by up to 60% by consistent handwashing[1] by air travelers.

This tech could flag people who walk out of the bathroom without stopping to wash their hands. The easiest way to enforce compliance would maybe to be have a loud, embarrassing alarm go off when the perpetrator leaves the bathroom. Social conformity and peer pressure would drastically increase hand washing compliance.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/study-washing-hands-in-airpo...

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It is terrifying that people actually advocate for such authoritarian measures outside of mainland China. Every tyrant ever existed probably had at least one valid reason to justify their particular flavor of tyrannical rule. Coincidentally often it's not very difficult to find numbers that back up stripping people of their freedom, just find the right statistics.

Air travelers already submit too much more invasive measures. It's not like the airport is a bastion of civil liberties or privacy. I can guarantee you that the entrances and public parts of the bathroom (including the sinks) are already monitored by cameras.

Also, I don't understand how this proposal is authoritarian in the slightest. As written it involves zero coercion. The only enforcement mechanism is social pressure, a force that already molds everybody's behavior umpteen times a day to begin with.

> Air travelers already submit too much more invasive measures. It's not like the airport is a bastion of civil liberties or privacy. I can guarantee you that the entrances and public parts of the bathroom (including the sinks) are already monitored by cameras.

This is basically the definition of a slippery slope.

I wouldn’t count publicly shaming them as “zero coercion” and by definition authoritarian is “favoring or enforcing strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom”. Even though I do agree that everyone should wash their hands, this is not the way to do it.

Yelling at people "wash your filthy hands" isn't authoritarian. Social opprobrium is how a free society regulates itself: it's the authority of your peers rather than the authority of superiors.

While I agree with this specific premise in general, it is still disturbing as hell to have someone or something monitor what you do in a bathroom + it opens up a door for a lot of other things. Do you want bosses to know how much time you spend in bathroom on the phone vs. actually doing the deed? Because I can almost guarantee that's where this tech will head, if we continue down this route.

We need some meta tech innovation that precludes these slippery slope scenarios. Otherwise we’ll be in innovation paralysis because all roads lead to big brother.

Gary Larson agrees. Sorry, I couldn't find a better image. https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/8KjQYFOjfafGpGLFpwnwxFq4_c...

Yeah and what happens when a false negative happens and you get an embarrassing unjustified alarm?

We already pull people aside for an embarrassing and invasive search if they look brown enough in our airports. A buzzer when I leave the bathroom is the least of my worries.

Don't forget the planes!

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