BEIJING: Tencent, a Chinese tech giant, has launched a facial recognition “midnight patrol” function to catch adolescents impersonating adults in order to circumvent a regulatory curfew on underage gamers. China has made it illegal for those under the age of 18 to play online games between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., as part of a slew of new restrictions aimed at weeding out the excesses of gaming culture among the youth, which range from poor eyesight to internet addiction.
However, many underage players have circumvented the restrictions by utilizing adult-registered gaming accounts.
Tencent, the world’s largest online gaming company, announced last week that anyone playing with an adult ID after the curfew will be subjected to facial verification checks.
Tencent also said that when modifying safety settings aimed to help parents limit their children’s game play, users will be need to pass a facial recognition test, as “some youngsters have stolen their parents’ phones” to change the settings.
In a Tuesday social media post, the firm wrote, “Kids, put your phones away and go to sleep.”
The new features will be employed in roughly 60 mobile games at first, including the enormously popular multiplayer battle game Honor of Kings, which has over 100 million daily users.
China’s regulators have been scrambling to keep up with the country’s voracious desire for video games, particularly those played on mobile phones, which have been blamed for social problems such as online addiction and childhood nearsightedness.
Since then, the government has enacted a slew of additional regulations, including stricter prohibitions on virtual images of violence and a quota on the amount of online games that can be licensed each year./n
