Tencent wants to use facial recognition to check whether gamers are underage at night

Tencent will from now on use facial recognition software to detect underage Chinese gamers who play online games on adult accounts between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. The company writes that in a blog post.

“Accounts that are active at night for more than a certain period of time and registered to an adult’s name will be subject to a facial scan”, writes the Chinese company on her blog page. “Anyone who refuses or fails a facial scan will be categorized as a minor, stored in our anti-addiction system and placed offline until a new scan is requested.”

With this technology, which was given the name Midnight Patrol and has been tested since 2018, Tencent says it wants to check whether people who game at night with an adult account are actually of age. The feature will be introduced in more than 60 games, including “Glory of The King” and “Peace Elite,” according to Tencent.