People who cant do without their phones long enough to play tournament chess should just stay home and play with their phones . Electronic devices shouldnt be allowed in the playing " area " , period .
I addressed this earlier. There's no question that this would be an effective anti-cheating rule and you can't make a reasonable argument that it wouldn't deter cheating.
You could argue the restrictiveness of it, but not the effectiveness. Which has been my point since post #1. The listed rule is not effective, which makes it just silly and theatrical.
People have their electronic devices out all outside the playing area, sitting in the middle of the floor, against walls, anywhere they can find a spot. It would be very easy to stroll past someone who had a laptop out and see game analysis. Or your accomplice could used an engine analysis then meet you at one of the pairing sheets and whisper off a couple of moves. There generally aren't going to be many people there between rounds and no one will think twice if you only do this 2-3 times.
Trying to hide a cellphone in a roll of toilet paper in stall 3 at 2:45 seems much more likely to fail. You'd be better off pre-analyzing then writing the moves on the wall somewhere. And you can do that ahead of time anywhere outside of the bathroom.
Heck, a system where you write down analysis on a piece of paper then hand it off to him somewhere would be better than trying to hide a device in a bathroom stall. THEN you can visit the bathroom stall and flush the evidence when you're done.