Tencent tests facial-recognition in online game "King of Glory"

Chinese tech giant Tencent Saturday announced its plan to test the implementation of the facial-recognition technology onto its prevalent online game "King of Glory" among users from Beijing and Shen Zheng. 

A gamer plays the online game "King of Glory". [File Photo: IC]

Currently, there is no precedent to introduce the facial-recognition technology into the game industry across the globe. 

The move, according to Tencent, is aimed at utilizing the cutting-edge technology to prevent its game players, especially juveniles, from excessively indulging in the games. 

Tencent said some one thousand new users in Beijing and Shenzhen will be randomly selected to log into their game accounts by scanning faces. 

But the tech giant did not reveal detailed procedures on how the technology will work to recognize the users and prevent addiction over the game. 

A survey conducted in September targeting Tencent games' players and their parents showed that nearly 50 percent of people surveyed expressed their concerns over the exposure of their facial information when playing online games. 

To reassure doubts among users, Tencent made a commitment to take further steps to tap into the technology and seek more possible problems before its implementation into reality. 

Tencent has taken many measures to enhance its anti-addiction system of the popular "King of Glory" and other games amid mounting concerns over children's addictions into the games. 

In September, Tencent linked all of its self-developed games to China's public security platform, which allows it to recognize whether the real-name information of the relevant account is a minor, and then decide whether to restrain the playing time of the account. 

In July 2017, Tencent implemented strict rules on "King of Glory" in response to concerns from parents. Under the restrictions, players under the age of 12 will be limited to one hour of playing time per day, and are also forbidden from logging on to the game after 9 p.m. Children between the ages of 12 and 18 are limited to two hours a day.