Tencent Midnight Patrol

2021: Launch facial recognition to track gamers who play at night

In early July 2021, the Chinese gaming giant Tencent announced that it would use a facial recognition system to prevent underage gamers from playing computer games at night. The Tencent initiative aims to eradicate what the Chinese government defines as an excessive and unhealthy addiction to gaming.

In 2019, a law was passed in China aimed at preventing "unhealthy passion for underage online games." It includes banning minors from playing video games from 22:00 to 8:00, as well as limiting playing time to 90 minutes per day. The law also prohibits children from spending more than $28- $57 per month on microtransactions. New rules have also been introduced requiring all people, regardless of age, to register to participate in games using their real identity, and prohibiting citizens from playing games that include "sexual candor, cruelty, violence and gambling." In addition, China is developing a unified gamer identification system.

In China, launched a facial recognition system to track gamers who play at night

Tencent calls its new gamer tracking system Midnight Patrol and reports that it scans players' faces and compares the result with a database of faces and names. Users marked as minors will be blocked from accessing games whenever they play for the maximum amount of time or try to play during prohibited hours. Tencent also said that adults will be able to simply scan their faces again if the account is mistakenly blocked.

According to Tencent, any user who for some reason does not pass the identification will be considered a minor with all the consequences. Initially, the company will include about 60 games in the tracking program, but the list did not include one of the most popular League of Legends games from Riot Games.^[1]

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