Call of Duty's anti-cheat team says cheaters need accounts, and that sellers offer spoofers and evasion tools to help them get back in after a ban. The team issued more than 70,000 new hardware bans in a single month.
#TeamRICOCHET, Call of Duty blog, "The Cheating Ecosystem is a Multi-billion-dollar-market", 18 September 2026Gaming
Cheaters buy new accounts.They can't buy a new face.
Passive signals check every player, and a 3 second selfie, only when the signals flag risk, confirms a live, unique human with no ID to upload.
The problem
How players game the system
- Player_8821Lvl 1Player_4410Lvl 1Player_5032Lvl 1Same player
Smurfs and alt accounts
A skilled player opens a fresh account to stomp new players, and one person collects starter rewards across dozens of accounts to resell.
- Device IDHardware IDSpoofedIP addressNewSame faceBanned
Ban evasion
A cheater is banned at lunch and back in the queue by dinner, on a bought account, a new device and a new IP.
- Farm accountNo faceSessionPlayed22h, no breaks+482 gold
Bot farms and gold farming
Scripted accounts grind for hours with nobody at the keyboard, piling up currency and items to sell outside the game.
What changes
One face, one ban, every account.
01
Passive signals score every player
Network, device and behavior signals run in the background from account creation, and free play stays open. Across our network, that history catches repeat ban evasion early.
02
Risky players take an anonymous face check
Before ranked play, trading or a reward, a 3 second selfie confirms a live, unique person when the signals flag risk. Good players never see it.
03
A ban that follows the face
A banned player's face code, a template made from the face, stays on record. A new account, a new device or a spoofed PC still brings the same face to the next check.
Player_88212 new accounts, device · 6 matches todayElevated
The platform
Passive defenses first, proof of human when it counts.
Why now
Cheating runs on replacement accounts
Check players before ranked play, then run your next ban wave. A free pilot shows you how many of the new accounts that follow bring a banned player's face, and how many players finish the selfie.
A solution for every scenario
Let's talk trust
Start with a free pilot: see what the check catches on your own users, with no dev work to begin.
With tools like VerifyYou, AI becomes a force for good. It helps prevent AI-driven fraud and can be done with much lower friction than what we built over the years.
Built by humans from
- Quora
- Square
- Gusto
- Cohere Health
- Accenture
Security
Privacy and security in every decision
We keep a face code, not the photo, and hold it under SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 compliant controls.
No images stored. VerifyYou does not store images.
No ID or documents. HumanCheck anonymously confirms there is a real, live, unique person, with no name or ID.
A face code, not a photo. We treat it as sensitive biometric data.
SOC 2 Type II
ISO 27001:2022
ISO/IEC 30107-3 PAD Level 1 & 2
GDPR compliant
Common questions
Will a selfie hurt conversion?
You decide who sees the check and when: before ranked play, before a reward, or only for accounts your signals flag, so free play never has to see it. A free pilot lets you measure drop-off on your own players.
Does it replace our anti-cheat?
No. Keep it: anti-cheat finds the cheat, and HumanCheck anonymously makes sure the ban lands on a person. The same selfie can also return an estimated age range for age assurance. It's an estimate, not legal proof of age.
Does it stop smurf accounts in ranked play?
Yes, when the check sits in front of ranked play or a reward. A skilled player opening a fresh account still brings the same face, so the account matches the one already on record instead of starting clean.
Does it work for PC and mobile players?
Players open the check in their phone's browser. On a PC, one click shows a QR code that moves the same session to their phone. A mobile SDK for iOS, Android and React Native is in beta and wraps the same check.
Do you learn the player's name?
No, by design. You learn that the player is real and unique, and whether they've verified with you before. You don't learn their name.
Do you store photos of our users?
No. We keep a face code, not your users' images.
How much work is it to add?
It's two API calls: one to start the check and one to read the result.
What does it cost?
It's 50 to 100 times cheaper than KYC. You pay per check, and nobody uploads an ID document.
Resources
Keep learning
Blog
The Ban Evader's Playbook: Why 90% Get Away With It
Reddit's most sophisticated ban evasion tool misses 90% of them.
Read the post
Blog
The Treadmill Problem in Trust and Safety
Bot detection resets every quarter, but confirming a real person holds in perpetuity.
Read the post
Blog
The Best Human Verification Platforms in 2026
Human verification covers four different product categories that solve four different problems. This guide separates them, compares what each one confirms, and shows which published prices vendors actually disclose.
Read the post
Ready to get started?
VerifyYou scales trust: passive signals on every session, a face check only when risk calls for it.
