Going to the bathroom seriously harms your privacy

Microphones even in our toilets?

What are we ready to accept in order to prevent and anticipate the slightest danger in terms of health? Some recent proposals by scientists give food for thought on this subject…

In a report published last December, the Acoustical Society of the United States (ASA) proposed, for the common good, to install in public toilets in strategic areas “micro sensors” in order to identify the spread of disease epidemics, such as cholera, which are accompanied by diarrhoea. The idea would be to automatically monitor patient stool » by deploying these microphones in public toilets and healthcare establishments in high-risk areas to quickly alert professionals to a spreading epidemic. Technology would once again come to the rescue of our health. Although she proposes to act without collecting any identifiable information “, the scientist behind this proposal cherishes the dream that one day her artificial intelligence algorithm trained to detect diarrhea could be used ” home “via smart devices that would monitor” our own stools and our health ».

This news, which makes you smile at first glance, would not be out of place in George Orwell’s Dystopia 1984, where the dictatorial and omnipresent Big Brother does not take his eyes off the citizens, even in their toilets. She wouldn’t look out of place either. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, which tells of a world that has become “stable” by cutting back on all individual freedoms. In this world, ” people are [en] safety, never sick » and have « not afraid of death “but they are unhappy as the stones and” conditioned in such a way that, practically, they cannot help but behave as they should ».

At the same time, the new zealand parliament has just passed a law that makes illegal the sale of smoking tobacco products to people born in 2009 or after. In some countries, these Brave New World “where States anticipate any potential disease, any potential ” derailment are already at work. This is the case in Chinewhere citizens are deprived of access to certain social services if they have had a bad grade for having crossed the street outside the nails or expressed a political opinion different from that of the government.

At a time when our individual freedoms have been largely hampered by anti-Covid measureswith great reinforcement of slogans and messages of the “Party” hammered on our “telescreens” (cf. 1984), this information invites us to reflect on what each of us is ready to accept in the name ofa society that wishes to anticipate the slightest danger… for our own good.

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