Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul brought to light a $6.9 million provision for a “smart toilet” that was part of his annual federal government waste report that tabulated $54.7 billion in government waste in the past year.
Stanford University researchers used $6,973,057 in funds from the National Cancer Institute to build a toilet that contains three cameras, including one that can identify the user’s “analprint,” according to the Festivus Report 2020.
The abstract described the toilet as “easily deployable hardware and software for the long-term analysis of a user’s excreta through data collection and models of human health.” Additionally, the toilet analyzes a user’s urine color, calculates its flow rate, and classifies stool according to the Bristol stool form scale.
Ultimately, the device can extrapolate if each unique user has a particular medical issue through this type of analysis.
“Each user of the toilet is identified through their fingerprint and the distinctive features of their anoderm, and the data are securely stored and analysed in an encrypted cloud server,” the abstract noted.
Seung-min Park, a senior research scientist at Stanford University, wrote in a blog post that the notion of an anal print was first thought of by artist Salvador Dali, who found that “the anus has 35 or 37 creases, which are as unique as fingerprints.”
