"Honor of Kings" obliges Chinese players to recognize their faces

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Young computer gamers in Leipzig: "Children, put your cell phones away and go to sleep"

Photo: Jan Woitas / picture alliance / dpa

The IT group Tencent is tightening youth protection measures for players in China.

Only those who identify themselves as adults using face recognition are allowed to play after 10 p.m.

"Children, put your cell phones away and go to sleep," wrote the company on online networks.

The Chinese law on the protection of minors was tightened in 2019.

Among other things, children and young people under the age of 18 are not allowed to play online games between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.

There are also maximum limits on how much money young people can spend on online games per month.

This is intended to contain the negative consequences of excessive gambling, from deterioration in eyesight to gambling addiction.

Tencent has now strengthened the enforcement of these rules with the new system.

For example, players are asked to identify themselves via their cell phone cameras when they want to log in or initiate a payment.

Anyone who wants to change the child protection settings of the account must also accept facial recognition.

After all, it has happened that children have "stolen their parents' cell phone" in order to change the settings for their own purposes, explains Tencent.

Anyone who refuses to participate will in future be classified as a minor and can only play with restrictions.

The new rules will initially apply to around 60 online games.

This also includes the fighting game "Honor of Kings", which is played by more than 100 million people every day.

tmk / AFP