Tencent, the Chinese tech giant, rolled out a facial-recognition system called the Night Patrol to bar underage gamers from online games from 22:00 to 08:00. It will also prevent children from exceeding a daily limit of 90 minutes.
Night Patrol scans the player’s face, requires them to provide a real name, and compares the data with China’s national public-safety system. Users flagged as underage will not be able to access a game at night or beyond the daily limit.
A player who fails the verification will be considered a minor by default.
“Anyone who refuses or fails the check will be regarded as a minor and, as stated in the rules for tackling gaming addiction, will be cut off from the network,” the company said.
Chinese authorities are also considering transferring data from Tencent’s facial-recognition system to the state social-credit system.
To date, 60 games are connected to the age-verification system. The company plans to expand the list in the future.
Chinese authorities and parents of young children regard the development as useful and effective. A social-media user and mother of a seven-year-old child said that the technology would help monitor her son’s gaming sessions and shield him from gaming addiction.
“Face recognition is a long-awaited sign, because real-name verification cannot deter children from participating in games,” she added.
Teenagers, by contrast, are unhappy with the measure. After the company’s post on WeChat, many expressed anger.
“Sad news for us, high school graduates who have only a couple of months left until turning eighteen,” wrote one of the teenagers.
In 2019 Chinese authorities enacted a law aimed at preventing “unhealthy involvement of minors in online games.” Under the rules, children may play from 08:00 to 22:00 for no more than 90 minutes per day. Minors were prohibited from spending more than $28 a month on microtransactions.
The government also requires all gamers, regardless of age, to register in online games under real names and banned titles containing explicit sexual content, violence, cruelty and gambling.
In June, it was reported that Canon Information Technology installed AI cameras that only admit smiling people into offices.
In May, a software engineer spoke of testing on Uyghurs of emotion-recognition in Xinjiang police stations.
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