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INCHEON
11 FOREIGN LANGUAGE
HIGH SCHOOL

Tencent had been using Chinese IDs for a couple of years now, but the company tells us that underage players
kept finding ways to get around them — like using their parents’ accounts.
So, the company found a new solution: a facial scan using the front camera of a mobile phone. The codename
— Midnight Patrol — is an attempt to check that an adult account is an adult.
It launched July 5th in over 60 mobile games, including the hits Honor of Kings and Game for Peace — also
known as the Chinese version of PUBG.

Will it be safe? And will players outside of China get the effect?

The company confirms that the facial recognition system is only for China and mobile games. Tencent
says it will not store any of the new scans itself. Instead, it sounds like it builds on China’s established facial
recognition surveillance system. And any scans Chinese users will have already sent to Tencent. Ahmad says
all of Tencent’s games in China use WeChat IDs for login and the Midnight Patrol can use China’s national
citizen database of face photos to check against, too. China’s surveillance engine is also used for more
troubling things, of course.

Han Dong Hoon (2-4)
handonghoon6@gmail.com