Recently, the incident of a 9-year-old boy playing a mobile online game with a recharge of 6,400 yuan within 10 minutes and a deduction of more than 10,000 yuan within a few days has attracted attention. According to public information, the boy's account was registered with adult identification information.
On March 14 this year, the Guangdong Provincial Consumer Council released the hot spots and difficulties of consumer complaints in the province in 2023, mentioning that the problem of online game recharge for minors is still prominent.
Relevant experts said that the protection of minors requires the joint participation of multiple entities, and from the perspective of pre-prevention, the real-name system of online games should be further consolidated, and the mechanism and process of recharge and refund should be further clarified and standardized. On the other hand, parents should also fulfill their duties as guardians to protect minors.
The problem of recharging online games for minors is still prominent
"The child used his grandmother's mobile phone to recharge the game privately. "The child is 12 years old this year, and he peeked into his parents' payment password and recharged to buy coins many times. "The minor peeked into the payment password of the parents, but the parents did not find out, and the children recharged and consumed the game many times. "On the online complaint platform, there are many complaints about minors recharging, and parents report that without their knowledge, their children secretly recharge the game, and the amount of complaints involved ranges from 100 yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
On April 17, the reporter searched for the keyword "minor game recharge" on Sina's consumer service platform "Black Cat Complaint", and a total of 25,187 complaint messages appeared. In the complaint, some parents reported that their children were induced to recharge during the game, "According to the child's description, an advertisement popped up to show the lucky draw at that time, and he could receive it by entering the password, and he entered the password 3 times, and the result was deducted three times." Another parent said that the child secretly used a domestic mobile phone of the elderly at home to download the game and log in directly, and the game interface design drew a blind box to induce minors who have no judgment ability to recharge and consume.
The reporter learned that in 2019, the General Administration of Press and Publication of the People's Republic of China issued a notice on preventing minors from indulging in online games. It is clarified that online gaming enterprises shall not provide game payment services for users under the age of 8, and for minor users over the age of 8 but under 16 years of age for game payment services provided by the same online game enterprise, the amount of single recharge shall not exceed RMB 50 and the cumulative amount of monthly recharge shall not exceed RMB 200, and the amount of single recharge shall not exceed RMB 100 for minor users over the age of 16, and the cumulative amount of recharge per month shall not exceed RMB 400.
With the promulgation of relevant regulations, the problem of large-amount game recharge by minors has been curbed to a certain extent, but the problem of online game recharge by minors is still frequent.
During this year's "315" period, the Guangdong Provincial Consumer Council released the six hot and difficult consumer complaints in the province in 2023, and received a total of 64,812 online game complaints, a year-on-year increase of 108.86%, accounting for 55.94% of Internet service complaints. Among them, the problem of recharging online games for minors is still prominent.
Both the platform and parents should bear the corresponding responsibilities
Another common problem reported by parents after finding out that their children have recharged is that it is difficult to get a refund, and the most important reason is that it is difficult to prove that the child is recharging on his own. "We were asked to provide video evidence of the top-up, and there were no surveillance cameras installed in the house. A complaining parent said.
The Guangdong Provincial Consumer Council also pointed out that the problem of recharging online games for minors includes loopholes in the recharge process, minors can easily bypass anti-addiction measures to recharge large amounts, and it is difficult for parents to provide evidence to refund fees;
"Once parents have a complaint, the platform should have a clear refund processing mechanism in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Code. Yuan Ningning, deputy director of the Juvenile Affairs Governance and Legal Research Base of China University of Political Science and Law, said that from the perspective of pre-prevention, the real-name system for online games should be further consolidated, and face recognition should be implemented on the premise of protecting personal information.
Liu Xingliang, president of the DCCI Internet Research Institute, believes that "the platform has a great responsibility" when it comes to preventing minors from playing online games and recharging large amounts, but parents are the first responsible persons. "My child also plays games, and now he is underage, and he asked if he could log in with my account, but I strongly disagreed. Liu Xingliang said that children can play games, but they need to use their own accounts to play according to the regulations, "logging in with an adult account will be out of control." ”
Wang Lei, a researcher at the Intelligent Technology Law Research Center of Beijing Institute of Technology, pointed out that the protection of minors requires the participation of multiple parties, and from the perspective of family and social responsibility, family members are the first responsible persons. "In some cases, children take the initiative to get adult mobile phones to play games and pay, and some parents directly give their mobile phones registered as adults to their children to play, which needs to attract the attention of the society. ”
According to a case released by China Court Network on February 1 this year, the Intermediate People's Court of Longyan City, Fujian Province, concluded a case of game recharge and refund for minors, while safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of minors, it also warned legal guardians to fulfill their guardianship responsibilities.
According to the case, Zhou, a minor, is 12 years old this year. Without the knowledge of his grandfather Zhou, he used Zhou's WeChat bound website account to recharge 25 times in a row to buy game currency, with a total recharge of 977.60 yuan, and Zhou's father, as a guardian, repeatedly appealed to the website company to request a refund of the recharge, but to no avail, and the plaintiff filed a lawsuit. Combined with the actual situation, the court considered and ruled that a website should bear 80% of the liability, and Zhou XX should bear 20% of the liability, and Zhou XX was a person with limited civil capacity, and the guardian should bear his civil liability, so it ruled that the website company should refund the recharge amount of 782.08 yuan.
The judge said that the case was a typical case of online recharge for minors. When minors engage in online games, they arbitrarily top up multiple sums in a short period of time, and their age and intelligence level are not commensurate with their age, and their conduct shall be invalid if they are not recognized by their legally-designated representatives. However, Zhou's guardian failed to perform his guardianship responsibilities and failed to properly keep his mobile phone, Alipay and bank card passwords, and Zhou's guardian should bear corresponding responsibility for Zhou's civil act of purchasing fast coins, and the court determined that Zhou's guardian was at fault after comprehensively considering whether Zou Moumou's guardian used his mobile phone to study and supervise the child, failed to fully perform his guardianship responsibilities, and failed to properly keep his mobile phone and bank card password, etc., and determined that a website company should bear 80% There is nothing wrong with the responsibility of the left and right.
How to use facial recognition is debatable
"If there is a problem with minors recharging, the platform will take emergency measures after receiving feedback. Some platforms will refund unconditionally from the perspective of fulfilling social responsibility, while some platforms will ask parents to provide corresponding supporting materials to complete the refund due to the burden of proof. Wang Lei said.
In response to the problem of minors bypassing identification procedures and playing online games with large amounts of recharge, some parents have raised the question of whether game manufacturers can prevent this problem through technical means.
The reporter learned that face recognition is the most mentioned statement at present, but there is also controversy.
Liu Xingliang mentioned that from a technical point of view, the platform has means to prevent this behavior from happening, such as enabling face recognition when logging in to the game, but this function is not used in all games, because the game logged in with an adult account defaults to the user as an adult, and the higher the prevention, the more disgusted the user.
Wang Lei believes that from the current technical means, face recognition in the login or payment link can prevent minors from recharging large amounts, but this also faces a dilemma, one is who will bear the economic cost of the application of recognition technology, and the other is that with the progress of technology, if there is an AI face swap, the platform does not necessarily have to be exempted because of the applicable technology. At the same time, facial information is sensitive personal information, and it should be used with great caution and in conjunction with relevant laws and regulations.
Beijing News reporter Su Ji
Edited by Miao Chenxia and proofread by Liu Baoqing