Risks of Facial Recognition in Gaming

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Facial recognition in gaming offers several benefits; the biggest among them is fighting gaming addiction. Thus, when the Chinese government decided to fight the menace of gaming addiction, NetEase and Tencent deployed facial recognition technology to help the campaign.


Tencent was the first company to introduce facial recognition with its popular mobile game Honor of Kings (more details about the game) and later followed suit with the release of Peacekeeper Elite (reference). The anti-addiction system was geared towards limiting the playing time of minors as it is used to verify the identities of players. IDs are cross-referenced with the public security databases. If it’s found that a minor is using an adult’s account to bypass the checks, they will have to go through facial recognition for verification. Suspicious payments or financial transactions will also have to undergo facial recognition for completion. 

Tencent claims that privacy protection is their highest priority and their verification systems encrypt all relevant data while complies with the regulations for ensuring maximum privacy. Platforms storing facial data are not secure enough, which has led to several data thefts and leaks in recent months (the Chinese government also requires everyone to get their faces scanned when purchasing a SIM card.) Gaming companies have been forced to install facial recognition systems, and due to a lack of proper security measures, their databases are being sold to e-commerce platforms. On the other hand, biometric data leaks pose unique challenges as they include attributes such as people’s faces and fingerprints. Thus, securing accounts post data leak is much more challenging than changing or rewriting a password.



The ambit of security is growing larger by the day, and it has to cover new grounds because of the latest innovation in the field of video gaming. Gaming companies have to take every possible step to counter the challenges that new technologies like facial recognition pose. They’ll have to secure their servers and databases to prevent data thefts and leaks

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