Smart Toilets – Another Private Data Leak?
Imagine not being able to find the flush button after relieving yourself in a public toilet, while trying to navigate this new toilet seat to determine how to flush, it automatically flushes. This was my experience at the Amsterdam airport in December 2018. Depending on your relationship with technology, your reaction will vary. I was startled, impressed but also concerned about this cutting-edge tech. I couldn’t help being curious about some data privacy related questions – Did the seat collect my data? What did it collect? Why collect users’ data? As I took my next flight home, I couldn’t help pondering on why the seats were made “smart”? Was it for a better public hygiene? Trendiness? Public data collection? Most importantly, what are smart toilets? and do we really need them?
Smart toilets are autonomous flush toilets with varieties of embedded gadgets like infrared, and gas sensors to detect human presence, toilet hygiene and odors; solenoid valve, electric bidets as actuators - they automatically flush the toilet, and a microcontroller that processes information - data or signal - from the sensors and instructs the actuators to act (flush toilet, upload toilet or user data to server) appropriately. These components are usually connected via wireless connections to some software, cloud servers or data storages where the data collected from the toilet are stored and processed. Historically, toileting was done directly in pits (and their designs were regionally based) (Antoniou, et al., 2016). The introduction and evolution of modern flush toilets for commercial consumption has helped improved our sewage systems and overall hygiene – so, toilets are not simply objects, but are implicated in city systems, social systems, health systems, ecosystems, even microbial systems. Fast forward to this era, the data era, where almost every activity is internet-based, and every object is connected to a network. Including toilets. This connects them into the growing landscape of cyber-physical systems (CPS). But, what does that mean?
A CPS is a network of objects, hardware, software, and our environment. They gather data about the environment through sensors, transfer them over some network to software for analysis, autonomously control the connected hardware and services through actuators and, influence our environment. The actuators influence their environment based on the sensed state of the environment. CPSs can be connected to one another, communicating with and influencing themselves. Smart toilets are CPSs and can be connected to other systems like your smartphones, smart refrigerators, smartwatches, virtual assistants (Alexa and Amazon Echo), telemedicine, etc. and together, exert control in our environments.
In my quest to unravel my experience at the airport toilet, a google search on “smart toilets” brought up articles with headings like: “Smart toilet can turn your Pee into research gold”, “ Future AI Toilets to Scan Poop to Diagnose Health Issues”, “Can AI Toilets Be the Next Popular Health-Tracking Device?”. These articles made me realize not only can smart toilets collect user data, they may be stored for analysis or research. Devices are increasingly being connected and made “smart”, and privacy is not-so-assured in these – also, surrendering our privacy seem to yield more utility. This practice is being extended to toilets. Toilets are considered serene, and sometimes serve as refuge during crazy times. In toilets, we are most vulnerable, and are usually ourselves and for some, it is the only place they get needed privacy and isolation in their daily lives. Toilets are the last place we want our privacy intruded upon. Is our place of refuge about to be colonized by invading techs? Will toilets no longer just collect waste for public hygiene?
Researchers argue that smart toilets are essential for a better public hygiene through automatic, touchless flushing, reducing germs and virus spread. These toilets can be used to collect data about one’s wastes, analyze their chemical concentration digitally to diagnose health conditions; the general public’s hygiene and lifestyle can also be inferred from the sewage. These toilets are also seen as being handy to toilet janitors. Some of the recent smart toilet research has been directed towards ‘touch-free’ user interfaces (users can control the toilets with hand gestures, facial gestures through camera, voice recognition), real time health diagnosis and tracking, internet of things, etc. (Clements 2017). As commendable and innovative as these sounds, they also raise questions regarding public data collection and its implications. The risk of security and privacy breaches in sensitive data collection and storage, and the potential unauthorized analysis and use of these data.
Imagine a future where your accessibility to social services like quality education, health services, financial assistance, other basic facilities and services, including getting hired is decided by a social scoring system. This system has access to every data related to you that have been collected over time from your gadgets, social media, shopping platforms, browsers histories, including your toilets. Data that may not have been initially collected for this purpose but was found useful for it – invasive surveillance, weaponized as a source of control and power to the powerful. Toilets, when smart become one of many networked devices – each device can be a data collector. When we use smart toilets, aside our wastes, what data do we flush away? Does improving public health justify the involuntary introduction of smart toilets in our lives? What do these toilets stand for? Who do they serve? The public/data providers? Or the service providers/data owners?
I urge policy makers and service providers to reflect on - How much does the public know about smart toilets? The smart algorithms? Collected data lifecycle? How transparent are their processes to the public they serve? What measures are taken to ensure they aren’t repurposed or weaponized? What options do public members who don’t want to use these toilets, or their data collected? How inclusive are these toilets’ designs? How much user privacy need to be traded for utility? What/Where is the limit to this?
Will public toilets soon deploy facial recognition – and other identifying “touch-free” technologies – that efficiently collects public data in the name of “public good”?
References
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