The US agency for rating video games by age (ESRB for its acronym in English) has requested the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to use facial recognition technology to identify the age of players.
On paper, the objective of this technology, which works simply by taking a selfie, is to prevent minors from accessing video games and other content that is not recommended for their age, but at the same time it raises questions about how it can make it easier – even more – for companies third parties have access to the data of the smallest.
In addition to the ESRB, behind this proposal are Yoti, the developer of the aforementioned facial recognition technology; and SuperAwesome, an Epic Games subsidiary specializing in children’s entertainment and advertising. In their request, made last June, the three signatories ensure that this system will respect the US law for the protection of children’s privacy (COPPA), but critical voices have also begun to emerge.
Unlike the parental verification systems used until now in the United States, and which may require the user to enter their credit card, driver’s license or check their email, this new method proposed by the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) only requires the person who is going to use the game or application to take a selfie.
After checking to see if there’s a human face in front of the camera, the system takes a photo and uploads it to Yoti’s server to estimate the person’s age, a process that developers say takes less than a second. In case of detecting that the person does not meet the recommended age, access to the game or app is denied.
The particularity of this system is that it can also be used to manage the permissions of a game or app so that a minor can use it. In fact, as denounced by the journalist Brendan Sinclair in GamesIndustry, it is a technology that makes it much easier for parents or guardians to approve the access of minors to games that require permissions since it reduces the process to a simple photograph.
“The focus here is not child protection,” says Sinclair in his article for this British portal specialized in the video game industry. “It’s more a question of whether companies will be able to lower the barriers to exploiting children’s personal information,” he adds.
From the ESRB they have been quick to affirm that this technology will scrupulously respect the privacy of its users and that “it will not allow children to be identified in any way.” In a statement, the organization maintains that “the images and data used for this process are never stored, used for AI training, used for marketing, or shared with anyone; the only information that is communicated to the company requesting VPC [verification of parental consent] is a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer as to whether the person is over 25 years of age”.
For Sinclair, however, the goodwill expressed by the US agency does not mean that the use of this technology eliminates friction when parents and guardians authorize the use of games and applications among minors. For this analyst, having to enter a series of data to authorize the purchase, or search for a specific document, is not the same as simply taking a selfie.
In his article for GamesIndustry, Sinclair also points to the two companies that are also behind the application. Remember that SuperAwesome is a subsidiary of SuperEpic, the Fortnite company that, at the end of last year, was fined by the FTC for using techniques known as dark patterns and must pay $520 million for violating the privacy of the minors.
Sinclair also points to the CEO of Yoti, the businessman Robin Tombs, who before this new project had founded the games of chance company Gamesys, fined (1.2 million pounds sterling) by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission for not complying with their social responsibilities, as well as ignoring the warning signs of problems that the game can generate among users.
After the ESRB proposal has been submitted, it is up to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to decide whether or not to implement facial recognition to verify the age of players in video games and other applications.
