China's 'midnight patrol' cracks down on young gamers. Chinese gaming giant Tencent is rolling out facial recognition to stop children playing between 22:00 and 08:00.

China's 'midnight patrol' cracks down on young gamers

7 July 2021SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty Images

Chinese gaming giant Tencent is rolling out facial recognition to stop children playing between 22:00 and 08:00.

The "midnight-patrol" technology will stop "tricks" circumventing the government curfew, introduced in 2019 with a cap on what young gamers could spend on in-game transactions, it says.

The bans require gamers to register with their official IDs, linked to a national database.

But children have reportedly been using adults' IDs instead of their own.

And now, anyone playing for a certain length of time will require a facial scan to prove they are an adult.

Tencent started testing the system in 2018 - but it will now cover more than 60 games from the world's biggest game company.

It announced the expansion on China's QQ messaging service, calling it "zero-hours cruising", which China news site Sixth Tone translated as "midnight patrol".

Many of Tencent's top titles, such as Honour of Kings and Game for Peace, are for phones - mobile gaming is far more popular in China than the West.

Facial recognition is easier to implement using a phone's camera than on a computer or games console.

And age checks using cameras are already being suggested to verify users' age for online sales of adult products.