Chinese gaming giant Tencent has used a facial recognition system to prevent children from becoming addicted to games. The system will recognize the faces of minors so they don't play games until late at night.
This system was launched to implement Chinese government regulations to suppress excessive gaming habits in children. The law, which was launched in 2019, prohibits minors from playing the game from 10pm to 8am, and is limited to 90 minutes a day.
The rules also oblige players of all ages to register using their identity cards which are integrated with the national database. But many minors try to break this rule by using an adult's ID card.
To prevent minors from breaking the rules, Tencent also introduced a new system called 'Midnight Patrol'. The system will recognize the player's face and match it with a database containing names and faces.
Game players identified as minors will be locked out of the game when they have passed the specified 90 minutes, or when they have attempted to play the game for a specified number of hours.
"We will perform a facial scan for accounts registered with real names and who have played the game for a certain period of time at night," said Tencent Games in an official statement, as quoted by Gizmodo, Friday (9/7/2021).
"Anyone who refuses or fails to perform face verification will be treated as a minor, and as described in the anti-addiction control in Tencent's game system, and will be kicked out of the game."
Tencent says that if any adult players are locked out of the game for not passing facial recognition, they can scan their face again and after that they can enter the game.
Tencent has been testing this system since 2018, but at that time they only implemented it in a few games. Now they will roll it out to more than 60 games, including Honor of Kings and Game for Peace which are the most popular games in China.
This system was warmly welcomed by the minor players. Like a WeChat user who will turn 18 in a few months.
"This is disappointing news for us high school graduates who are only two months away from turning 18," said a WeChat user.
Tags
APPS & GAMES