Facial recognition Photo:VCG

A Chinese lawmaker called the government to develop facial recognition-based supervision system to restrict the game-playing time of the minors to 60 minutes a day at this year's two sessions.

When players log into the online games, they will have to pass a face recognition system to verify the ID and after one hour, the game will stop automatically, and they are not allowed to log into other games within 24 hours, said Zhou Shanhong, a deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature.

The suggestion targets the game-playing time among Chinese minors who are often induced to recharge large amounts of money into games, bringing economic losses to families and setting children on the road of committing crimes in order to get money, Zhou said.

"The current online game real name authentication is a mere formality and minors can easily log on to the game platform and get indulged," Zhou said.

Minors below the age of 8 years old who participate in the online games can have their payment refunded, according to a legal opinion of the Supreme Court in May 2020, however in practice it is difficult to obtain evidence, Zhou said.

"It is hoped that more judicial decisions will be passed to force online game companies to implement real name authentication, face recognition and daily time limit," Zhou said.

Global Times