{"id":45660,"date":"2021-07-07T11:57:03","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T08:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=45660"},"modified":"2025-09-01T12:18:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T09:18:54","slug":"tencent-deploys-facial-recognition-to-curb-underage-gaming-at-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/tencent-deploys-facial-recognition-to-curb-underage-gaming-at-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Tencent deploys facial-recognition to curb underage gaming at night"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tencent, the Chinese tech giant, rolled out<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Night Patrol scans the player’s face, requires them to provide a real name, and compares the data with China\u2019s national public-safety system. Users flagged as underage will not be able to access a game at night or beyond the daily limit.<\/p>\n

A player who fails the verification will be considered a minor by default.<\/p>\n

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“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.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Chinese authorities are also considering transferring data from Tencent\u2019s facial-recognition system to the state social-credit system.<\/p>\n

To date, 60 games are connected to the age-verification system. The company plans to expand the list in the future.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> that the technology would help monitor her son\u2019s gaming sessions and shield him from gaming addiction.<\/p>\n

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“Face recognition is a long-awaited sign, because real-name verification cannot deter children from participating in games,” she added.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Teenagers, by contrast, are unhappy with the measure. After the company\u2019s post on WeChat, many expressed anger.<\/p>\n

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“Sad news for us, high school graduates who have only a couple of months left until turning eighteen,” wrote one of the teenagers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In June, it was reported that Canon Information Technology installed AI cameras that only admit smiling people<\/a> into offices.<\/p>\n

In May, a software engineer spoke of testing on Uyghurs of emotion-recognition<\/a> in Xinjiang police stations.<\/p>\n

Follow ForkLog AI on Telegram: ForkLog AI<\/a> \u2014 all the news from the world of AI!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Chinese tech giant Tencent has rolled out the Night Patrol facial-recognition system 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[438,133,1771,1515],"class_list":["post-45660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-china","tag-tencent","tag-tracking"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"29","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45662,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45660\/revisions\/45662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}